Commons Sitting of 13 June 1912

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Provisional Order Bills (No Standing Orders applicable) — Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders are applicable, namely:—
Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation Provisional Order Bill.
Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time To-morrow.
Bawtry and District Gas Bill [Lords],
Report [12th June] from the Select Committee on Standing Orders read;
Bill to be read a second time.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 3) Bill,
Reported, with an Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill,
Reported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Local Government Provisional Orders (Gas) Bill,
Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Land Drainage Provisional Order Bill,
Reported with an Amendment [Provisional Order confirmed]; report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
London County Council (Money) Bill,
Reported, with Amendments; report to lie upon the Table.
Birkbeck Share and Debenture Trust Bill [Lords],
Reported, with an Amendment; report to lie upon the Table.
Ystradfellte Water Bill [Lords],
Reported with Amendments; report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to—
Metropolitan Police Provisional Order Bill, without Amendment:—
Egremont Urban District Water Bill,
Ramsbottom Urban District Railless Traction Bill, with Amendments.
That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the regulation of moveable dwellings." [Moveable Dwellings Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to confer further powers on the Houghton-le-Spring District Gas Company." [Houghton-le-Spring District Gas Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for conferring further powers upon the Wakefield Gaslight Company." [Wakefield Gas Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act for incorporating and conferring powers on the Woking District Gas Company." [Woking District Gas Bill [Lords.]
Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Yorkshire Transport Company, Limited, to construct a pier on the River Humber; and for other purposes." [North Killingholme Pier Bill [Lords.]
And, also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Tees Conservancy Commissioners to make new roads for improving the access to lands reclaimed by them in the county of Durham; to heighten the one-third tide river-training walls in the River Tees; to confer further powers on the Commissioners for the regulation of the river; and for other purposes." [Tees Conservancy Bill [Lords.]
Houghton-le-Spring District Gas Bill [Lords],
Wakefield Gas Bill [Lords],
Woking District Gas Bill [Lords],
North Killingholme Pier Bill [Lords],
Tees Conservancy Bill [Lords],
Read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
Copies presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 4902 and 4904 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
FERTILISERS AND FEEDING STUFFS ACT, 1906.
Copy presented of Report of Proceedings of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland under The Fertilisers and Feeding Stuffs Act, 1906, and under Part II. of The Weeds and Agricultural Seeds (Ireland) Act, 1909, for the year 1910–11 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION (IRELAND).
Copy presented of Rule determining the maximum number of Superintendents to be appointed, 1912 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
Copy presented of Rule appointing places of Examination, 1912 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

LABOURERS' COTTAGES (IRELAND).
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 11th March; Mr. Flavin]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

LABOURERS (IRELAND).
Return presented relative thereto [ordered 12th March; Mr. Flavin]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House:—

PUBLIC RECORDS (HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, IN BANKRUPTCY).
Copy of Second Schedule containing a List and Particulars of classes of Documents of the High Court of Justice, in Bankruptcy, which are not considered of sufficient value to justify their preservation in the Public Record Office [by Act].
COLONIES (COLONIAL ACTS, ROYAL ASSENT).
Address for Return "of the names of Bills or Acts passed by both Houses of Parliament in Dominions and Colonies possessing responsible government, since the date of the House of Commons Return, No. 184, of Session 1906, which have not come into operation because His Majesty's Assent has not been given."—[Sir Gilbert Parker.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.

  Albania.
  Mr. NOEL BUXTONasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give any reassuring news with regard to the rising in Albania?
  The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Edward Grey): The latest reports are somewhat contradictory, and it is impossible for me to hazard any opinion as to the course which events will take. It is clear that serious local disturbances have occurred, but it is doubtful, so far as I am informed at present, whether these events would justify the conclusion that a general rising is to be feared.

  Morocco.
  Mr. COWANasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is in a position to communicate to the House the text of the recent treaty between the Government of the French Republic and the Sultan of Morocco establishing a French Protectorate in that country?
  Sir E. GREY: The text of the treaty has not yet been communicated to His Majesty's Government, and I am consequently unable to lay it before the House.
  Mr. COWAN: Is any treaty likely to be communicated to His Majesty's Government?
  Sir E. GREY: If and when it is desired that we should recognise it, no doubt it will be.
  Mr. COWANasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what will be the status of the British Minister at Tangier after the establishment of a French Protectorate in Morocco; and whether he will continue to communicate directly with the Moorish Government?
  Sir E. GREY: The status of the British representative at Tangier will necessarily depend on arrangements to be made with the French Government when they ask His Majesty's Government to recognise a French Protectorate. I am not at present in a position to say anything more definite on the subject.

  Egypt.
  Mr. FELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give the strength of the British garrison in Egypt at the present time.?
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): The detailed establishment of the British forces in Egypt will be found on page 24 of Army Estimates.

  China.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the six-Power group of financiers so manipulate the rates of exchange between London and China that it is impossible for the Chinese Government to draw money from London without suffering a prohibitive loss in exchange; and whether His Majesty's Government will continue to support those methods of exclusive dealing in Chinese finance?
  Sir E.GREY: The suggestion in the hon. Member's question is erroneous. It is customary to include in loan agreements with China a clause which lays down the method for fixing the rates of exchange, and both parties to the contract are necessarily bound by such a clause.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether he has any official information showing that
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  the six-Power group who propose to finance China with the support of their respective Governments refuse to accept the Chinese terms for a loan of less than £60,000,000, and that the Chinese want only a much smaller sum, and agree to the conditions in substance save as to the gross amount; and, if so, whether His Majesty's Government will continue to support the group in thus forcing China to grant them a monopoly in Chinese finance?
  Sir E. GREY: The difficulty is not about the amount but the conditions on which any loan, small or large, can safely be made. There is no intention of forcing China to borrow more than she wants or to borrow at all if she does not want to do so.
  Mr. GINNELL: May I ask if there is not the intention suggested on the part of the group—it is not alleged that the intention is that of the Governments—but the group?
  Sir E. GREY: I am not aware of such intention, or indeed of any very great anxiety to lend money.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is, aware that the only interest of Russia and Japan in the finance of the six-Power group is their power to veto the employment of foreign capital in the Chinese territories of Mongolia and Manchuria, except under the exclusive control of Russia and Japan, respectively, in those spheres of their respective pretensions; and whether Chinese interests in these territories are to be left at the mercy of those foreign financiers, whose interest does not go beyond profit-sharing, underwriting, floating the loan, and manipulating the exchange market against China?
  Sir E. GREY: The conditions of the loan agreement are at present the subject of confidential negotiations, but as has already been stated the Governments concerned will not give their approval and support to any agreement which does not make the real interests of China a primary consideration.
  Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, having regard to the illegitimate methods practised by the how predominant non-British members of the six-Power group in the Chinchow-Aigun Railway transaction, His

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  Majesty's Government will take care that no exclusive powers or privileges are given to the group for the ostensible purpose of proper administration, but in practise used for obtaining secret commissions and deflecting orders for materials into certain channels to the detriment of China?
  Sir E. GREY: I am disappointed that the hon. Member should suggest that His Majesty's Government might connive at a fraud such as that which he alleges, and of which I have no knowledge whatever.
  Mr. GINNELL: If the right hon. Gentleman were shown a verified copy of an agreement for the payment of secret commission out of the provisions of the old loan, to be carried out at the expense of China out of the present loan, would he still support the group comprising the parties to that illegal agreement?
  Sir E. GREY: If the hon. Gentleman has information which he thinks material to the question, and he sends it to me, of course I will receive it; but until I receive it I can say nothing about it.

  Trans-Persian Railway.
  Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the statement that Russia is quite prepared to meet the views of India on the question of the break of gauge between the Russian and Indian systems in the construction of the proposed Trans-Persian railway, he can now give an assurance that the Indian railway system and the Indian gauge will be allowed free entry into Ispahan and Yezd, and that the Russian system and Russian gauge will not be advanced anywhere to the south of these places?
  Sir E. GREY: Should a Trans-Persian railway come to be constructed His Majesty's Government have reserved their freedom of action in the completest possible manner as regards the construction of the line, which, of course, includes the question of its gauge. It is impossible at the present early stage of the proceedings, to give an assurance such as that asked for by the hon. and gallant Member on that or any other point of detail. This particular point will require careful consideration in consultation with the Government of India.
  Colonel YATE: May we take it, therefore, that the proposals of the Russian
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  Government to run their railway to a port in the Persian Gulf will not be acceded to?
  Sir E. GREY: All I can say is this: that in the matter of the gauge I cannot give a definite assurance. Before any decision is taken in regard to the gauge the Government of India will be carefully consulted. Nothing irrevocable has taken place; nothing irrevocable will take place until we have consulted the Government of India very carefully on this very important point.

  Argentine (Foot-and-Mouth Disease).
  Mr. CHARLES BATHURSTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, seeing that an interval of six months has elapsed since the stamping out of the last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in England, that contrary to previous experience the restrictions of the Argentine Government upon the importation of English live stock have not yet been removed, and that the Royal Agricultural Society's show, at which a large business in pedigree stock of every description is usually transacted with the agents of Foreign stock-owners, takes place in the first week in July, he will, in the interests of English stock-owners, make representations to the Argentine Government with a view to the immediate removal of the existing embargo?
  Mr. LANE-FOXalso asked the President of the Board of Agriculture if he will state what steps, if any, he proposes to take to urge upon the Government of the Argentine Republic the reopening of their ports to the pedigree stock of the United Kingdom, in view of its complete immunity from foot-and-mouth disease; and whether he will, if possible, endeavour to secure such reopening of the ports before the Royal Agricultural Society's show-on 1st July, in view of the important sale transactions generally associated with that show?
  The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Runciman): Perhaps I may be allowed to answer this question and question No. 120, addressed to me by the hon. Member for Barkston Ash, together. I am informed that a Decree was issued by the Argentine Government on 11th instant removing the restrictions on the importation of British live stock.
  Mr. C. BATHURST: I have a large number of telegrams which have come from

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  Buenos Ayres during the last fortnight to various importers of stock in this country; would it not be possible for the Government to notify the Argentine Government six months after this country has ceased to be affected by any serious contagious diseases of animals?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: There is no point in notifying the Argentine Government, because they have already removed the restrictions of their own free will.
  Mr. STANIER: Can the right hon. Gentleman see his way to make the information public so that the people interested may know?
  Mr. RUNCIMAN: Oh, yes; naturally we will give it the widest possible publicity so that exporters of livestock in this country may know that the restrictions have been removed.

  Mecca (Mahomedan Pilgrims).
  Sir EDWARD COATESasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he could obtain from the Italian Government, for the satisfaction of His Majesty's Mahomedan subjects, an undertaking that genuine pilgrims to Mecca and Medina during the approaching season will be allowed to proceed to their destination without molestation?
  Sir E. GREY: The question of the pilgrim traffic in the Red Sea is one that has already occupied the serious attention of His Majesty's Government. Early in the year His Majesty's Government expressed to the Italian Government the hope that every consideration consistent with the necessities of war would be shown to pilgrim ships going to or leaving the Hedjaz, and that no measures which the Italian Government might be impelled to take in those waters would in any way hamper the pilgrim traffic. His Majesty's Government have received assurances that the Italian Government would keep carefully in view the requirements of the pilgrim traffic, and were fully conscious of the necessity of not impeding it.
  Sir HILDRED CARLILE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the facilities to which he has referred will be extended to those going over land as well as to those landing at ports?
  Sir E. GREY: I must ask for notice of this question.

  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

    SALARIES OF RESIDENT MAGISTRATES.
    Mr. ROTHSCHILDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether the expression "periodical increments" contained in the Third Schedule to the Government of Ireland Bill, page 40, line 14, includes the periodical increase in the salaries of Irish resident magistrates caused by the automatic retirement at the age of sixty-five of resident magistrates of the senior classes, and consequent promotion of resident magistrates of the junior classes; and whether the expression "allowances," contained in Clause 47, page 29, line 16, of the Government of Ireland Bill, includes the fixed allowance of £100 per annum paid to Irish resident magistrates for travelling expenses?
    The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; the answer to the second part is in the affirmative.
    Mr. ROTHSCHILD: Is it not a fact that the junior magistrates are able accurately to calculate when their promotions will take place, and consequently their increase of salaries?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir, I do not think so. If a resident magistrate with seniority dies no doubt a magistrate from the second class is raised, not necessarily the one who is at the top of the second class, but that is not periodic increases within the meaning of the Bill.

    ORDER OF FREEMASONS.
    Mr. MOOREasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that for years the non-political and charitable society of the Order of Freemasons has been denounced by Roman Catholic bishops and Nationalist Members of Parliament indiscriminately; if it is proposed to place this society and its property under the control of a majority nominated by its opponents; and what safeguard will it have under the Government of Ireland Bill from tyranny, confiscation, and oppression at the hands of a Dublin Parliament?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): I am not aware how much foundation there is for the allegations in the first paragraph; in regard to the second and third, it is a matter for argument in Committee whether the safeguards proposed in the Bill are or are not adequate.
    Mr. MOORE: Arising out of that answer, will the right hon. Gentleman accept an Amendment to exclude the rights and privileges of members of this society now have from Clause 2?
    The PRIME MINISTER: No, Sir, as at present advised, no. I will listen to any arguments.
    Mr. MOOREIs the right hon. Gentleman prepared to throw these people to the wolves, either through ignorance, or indifference, or from a desire to placate hon. Members below the Gangway, or from all three?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is a matter for argument.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.

    ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY (APPLICATIONS FOR POSITIONS).
    Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary if he will recommend the Irish Insurance Commissioners and the Board of Trade to employ members of the police force and ex-members who have applied for appointments, if suitable; have many such applications been received from members of the Royal Irish Constabulary; and will he endeavour to find employment for these men, who have always served the State well?
    Mr. BIRRELL: A number of applications from members and ex-members of the Royal Irish Constabulary for appointments under the Insurance Act have been received, and will be duly considered with those of others. I shall be very glad to hear of the success of any of the constabulary candidates.

    SANATORIUM GRANT (IRELAND).
    Sir JOHN LONSDALEasked whether the sanatorium Grant under the National Insurance Act will be allocated among the counties in Ireland on a basis of population; and, if not, upon what basis will the allocation be made; and whether, if Grants under the Act are applied for by voluntary associations to be used for the establishment of sanatoria or other purposes for any of the counties in Ireland, the councils of those counties will be consulted by the Local Government Board before such Grants are recommended to the Treasury?
    Mr. BIRRELL: While any exceptional incidence of tuberculosis and economic differences might be taken into account as modifying factors, population will be the
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    primary basis of distribution of the Grant by the Local Government Board between the several county areas in Ireland. As regards the second part of the question I would refer the hon. Member to the circular issued by the Local Government Board to secretaries of county councils and town clerks on the 20th of May, in which it is stated that the Local Government Board will notify to each county council any applications for Grants by voluntary associations for the service of that county.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say if it is within his knowledge that any application has been received on behalf of any voluntary association in Ireland?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Yes, Sir, an application has been received from the National Women's Health Association for a Government Grant from the sums at the disposal of the Insurance Commissioners for this particular subject. That Grant has been most favourably acceded to by the Treasury.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, if before definitely acceding to that Grant for a voluntary association, he will withhold his assent, because assent would result in duplication and would interfere with a system of uniformity throughout the whole of Ireland?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir; assent has been already given, not indeed to any particular amount, but to a sum to be placed at the disposal of this voluntary association which, of course, can only be expended through the Local Government Board with the co-operation of the county councils.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: Was the right hon. Gentleman consulted, or was any Irish Department consulted before the application was made to the Treasury?
    Mr. BIRRELL: Yes, certainly.
    Mr. MOORE: Will the Treasury take into consideration the fact that this so-called philanthropic association is run chiefly on political lines by the wife of the Lord Lieutenant?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir, I resent very much that statement.

    Electoral Revision (Ireland).
    Mr. COTTONasked whether the Irish Registration Acts provide for the

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    assistant barristers appointed to revise the lists, and the County Court judge of the county arranging for the sittings in order to carry out the work of revision, and that this provision has not heretofore been acted upon by reason of the fact that the revising barristers' appointments are not made in time; and whether he will take steps to prevent this in future, and see that the clerks of the peace shall arrange the sittings as fixed by the judge and assistant revising barristers after they have met and decided upon the same?
    Mr. BIRRELL: It is the fact that the County Court judge arranges with his assistants for the sittings of the Revision Courts within his jurisdiction, and I am not aware that there is any foundation for the statement that the provisions of the Irish Registration Acts have not been acted upon. The appointment of revising barristers is made in ample time to permit of the necessary arrangements for the Revision Sessions being made by the County Court judge in consultation with his assistants. The appointments are made at the end of July or the beginning of August, and the earliest day on which the Revision Courts can sit is 8th September.
    Mr. MOORE: Will the right hon. Gentleman see that the appointments are made a little earlier than the end of July, so that we can can raise a debate in this House on some of the jobs of the Government?

    Land Purchase (Ireland).
    Mr. LYNCHasked whether, in regard to the MacNamara and Gore estates in Doolin, West Clare, he can state that the Congested Districts Board is now in a position to acquire these estates compulsorily; or, if not, what is the cause of the delay?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Congested Districts Board do not propose to take any steps to acquire the estates referred to compulsorily pending the result of proceedings which have been taken for the compulsory purchase of other estates.
    Mr. LYNCH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if these compulsory Clauses were applied it would give universal satisfaction in West Clare and very probably to the landlords as well?
    Mr. BIRRELL: No, Sir; we are not in a position to have any such universal application.
    Mr. CRUMLEYasked (1) how many years have elapsed since the Fortoral estate, county Fermanagh, was sold to the tenants under the Land Purchase Acts; and why no portion of the purchase-money has since been paid to the representatives or legatees of the late owners, some of whom are in extreme poverty; (2) whether any steps have been taken or are contemplated by the Estates Commissioners to acquire the demesne attached to Fortoral House, county Fermanagh, for division amongst the occupiers of uneconomic holdings in the immediate neighbourhood which are valued at £7 or under?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners are unable from the particulars given to identify these lands as the subject of proceedings for sale before them under the Land Purchase Acts.

    County Court Reform (Ireland).
    Mr. CHARLES CRAIGasked whether the Irish County Court judges have yet presented their Report and recommendations on the subject of County Court reform; and, if so, whether he will lay the Report upon the Table as soon as possible; and what steps he proposes to take to give effect to the judges' recommendations?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Lord Chancellor informs me that the Report referred to has just been received, and will be duly considered.

    Convent Schools (Ireland).
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked the Chief Secretary whether he has received any complaint as to the status and emoluments of lay assistants in convent schools; whether such assistants are deprived of pay during vacations; and whether he proposes to take any steps to inquire into their position?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I am aware that a resolution as to the position of these teachers was passed at a recent meeting of the Teachers' Congress. I understand that they are paid by the managers of the schools who employ them and not by the Commissioners of National Education who are therefore unable to say whether they are deprived of pay during vacation. As regards the last paragraph of the question I have nothing to add to the reply given to the question asked on this subject by the hon. Member for East Down, on the 6th instant.
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked whether any classes, and, if so, how many, were held during the past year by the Department's officers for the training of members of convents or monasteries exclusively; and what was the cost of such classes?
    Mr. RUSSELL: No classes such as those referred to were held by the Department's officers. Thirteen classes for the training of secondary teachers being also members of the convents were held last year. The cost of these courses of instruction to the Department was £356 1s., being the fees of instructors and examiners appointed by the Department, other charges being borne by the convents.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say if the money so charged for the training of members of convents and monsteries appears in the accounts furnished to the House?
    Mr. RUSSELL: They were voted moneys.
    Sir J. LONSDALE: Was it particularly stated to the House at the time that the moneys were voted for the purposes for which they have been used?
    Mr. RUSSELL: The Estimate was down for discussion, and that question was not asked. I take it that there was no discussion upon the point because it was not raised.

    Detention by Police (Abbeyfeale).
    Mr. O'DONNELLasked the Chief Secretary whether Mr. O'Hannrahan is detained by the police in Abbeyfeale because he gave his name in Irish; and whether he will explain the action of the authorities in this matter?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The police authorities inform me that this man was found on licensed premises during closing hours, and when called upon for his name and address answered in Irish, which the police did not understand. He refused to give the information asked for in English, and he also declined to answer in Irish when the publican undertook to interpret what he said. The police, who were not aware of his identity, arrested him under the powers conferred on them by Section 27 of the Licensing Act of 1874. He was brought before a local justice, who, on the prisoner refusing to answer in English or
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    write his name in Irish, ordered his detention until the following day when he was brought before the resident magistrate, who discharged him to be summoned.
    Mr. LARDNER: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether he was cautioned when taken into custody?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I assume he was.
    Mr. LARDNER: Will he tell us in what language?

    Housing of Working Classes (Monaghan).
    Mr. LARDNERasked when the Local Government Board will declare their decision on the Report made to them by their inspector of the inquiry held under the Housing of the Working Classes Act at Monaghan on 13th March, 1912?
    Mr. BIRRELL: The Inspector is dealing with the matter and expects to be in a position to communicate with the Council in the course of a few days.

    Mixed Marriages (Ireland).
    Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary if his attention has been called to a letter written by the Reverend Canon Nicholson, Protestant chaplain of the Cork workhouse, read at the meeting of the guardians on the 25th April, complaining that the rules of the workhouse had been transgressed by an attempt made to compel a Protestant inmate, named Wilkins, who had been married six years ago and had one son, to have a marriage ceremony gone through again in the presence of a priest, and that otherwise, as his wife had been told by a priest, their previous marriage would be illegal and their child illegitimate; that a man stated to be a Roman Catholic priest went to the workhouse subsequently, and having seen Wilkins informed him that it would be necessary for him to be married again by a Roman Catholic priest, and that Wilkins refused; that subsequently, when the letter of the Protestant chaplain came before a committee for investigation, the matter was quickly hushed up and the name of the Roman Catholic priest, who went to the workhouse and who tried to influence Wilkins and his wife to go through the ceremony of marriage again by a Roman Catholic priest, would not be given although asked for; if he will call upon the Local Government Board to hold an inquiry into the circumstances of the complaint of the Protestant chaplain; if

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    he will take means to have the name of the Roman Catholic priest whose conduct is complained of made public; and if he will take measures to protect any of His Majesty's subjects who have been married according to the law of the land, whether Protestants or Roman Catholics, from attempts to coerce them to get married again by a priest?
    Mr. BIRRELL: It appears from the minutes of the Cork Board of Guardians of 25th April last that the letter referred to containing statements similar to those set out in the question was read at the meeting, and was referred by the board of guardians to the visiting committee for investigation. When the report of the visiting committee was considered by the board of guardians at their meeting on 9th May, the assistant Protestant chaplain having stated that he was satisfied with a statement made to the committee on the subject by the assistant Roman Catholic chaplain, they thereupon decided that no action be taken in reference to the matter. The Local Government Board have received no further communication from the Reverend Canon Nicholson, and they assume that he concurs in the view expressed by his assistant in the matter, and no further action appears to be necessary.
    Captain CRAIG: Has the right hon. Gentleman taken any steps on broad grounds to stop this attempt to enforce the Ne Temere decree in various parts of the country?
    Mr. BIRRELL: I should be very sorry to interfere with the agreement come to by the Protestant chaplain and the Roman Catholic chaplain upon the particular facts of this case.

    Denominational Primary Schools (Ireland).
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland), whether he can state the amount of money expended by the Department during the past year on the primary schools of the Irish Church missions, the Irish Presbyterian Church missions, and the Christian Brothers, respectively?
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELL (Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture,): No money is expended by the Department in primary schools except in respect of drawing and manual instruction in certain primary schools not working in connection
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    with the National Education Board. None of these schools appear to belong to either of the Church missions mentioned. The sum of £1,259 4s. 9d. was last year paid from voted moneys for instruction in the subjects mentioned to seventy-seven primary schools conducted by Christian Brothers, and £341 6s. 8d. to eight industrial schools conducted by this Order.

    Importation of Sulphur Matches (India).
    EARL of RONALDSHAYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India if legislation is impending which would prohibit the importation into India of sulphur matches?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Mr. Montagu): The Government of India last year introduced a Bill into the Legislative Council on the lines of the White Phosphorus Match Prohibition Act. In view of representations that the information before the Council was insufficient, the Bill has been withdrawn. It is intended to reintroduce it in the next Winter Session of the Council.
    EARL of RONALDSHAY: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether the Government have taken into the consideration the fact that owing to their sartorial arrangements, or rather the absence of them, boxes are of no use to millions of Indian peasants?
    Mr. MONTAGU: All that sort of consideration will be open for discussion on the Bill and can be further discussed next Session.

    Bovine Animals (Religious Objections).
    Mr. GEORGE GREENWOODasked whether, in view of the fact that Hindus look upon bovine animals as sacred, and have, therefore, religious objections to the practice of vaccination, he has made, or will cause to be made, any inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining the feelings of the people of India with regard to this practice?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The Secretary of State does not consider it necessary to make the inquiry suggested. A suitable and sufficient vehicle for the expression and ascertainment of the feelings of the Indian people with regard to vaccination or any other matter is provided in the enlarged Legislative Councils.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Is there any Conscience Clause in India with regard to vaccination?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I will send the hon. Member a copy of the Vaccination Acts. There has not been, so far as I am aware, any representations of objections to vaccination from India on religious grounds.
    Colonel YATE: Are there any grounds for supposing that Indians have any religious objections to vaccination?
    Mr. MONTAGU: As I have just stated, there are no grounds whatever for that belief.

    Karachi Railway.
    Colonel YATEasked if the hon. Gentleman will say what are the present prospects of an extension of the metre-gauge railway into Karachi, so as to link up that port with the great metre-gauge railway systems of Rajputana and Northern India?
    Mr. MONTAGU: There is no intention at present to extend the metre-gauge railway in Karachi.
    Colonel YATE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Chamber of Commerce for Karachi has been long agitating for this small railway to be linked up?
    Mr. MONTAGU: I am aware that this is an old problem. Of course, in the building of railways every scheme is separate, and I can only say at present that there is no intention of extending the metre gauge railway into Karachi.
    Mr. LLOYD: In view of the reduction this year in the expenditure on railways, I wish to ask if the hon. Gentleman can agree to this suggestion?
    Mr. MONTAGU: The reduction of expenditure is a reason for not doing that.
    Mr. LLOYD: In view of the fact that only a very small number of railways have been constructed in India this year, can the hon. Gentleman possibly give more attention to this question?
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the vast importance of Karachi as a sea port?

    Small Arms Factory (Australian Contract).
    Mr. HUNTasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the contract for the plant for the small arms factory in Australia has been given to an American firm instead of to a British firm; whether he is aware that American firms are subsidised; and whether he will
    1038
    make representations to the Australian Government asking them to take this into consideration when British and American firms are competing for Australian requirements?
    Mr. TENNANT: The contract for the plant for the small arms factory in Australia was given to an American firm by the Commonwealth Government nearly three years ago; the Secretary of State is not aware whether the firm in question is subsidised; and he sees no sufficient ground for communicating with the Commonwealth Government on a subject which is within their own discretion.
    Mr. HUNT: Is it a fact that the Government do not care whether foreign manufacturers are subsidised or not, and are we to understand that the Government is willing to allow British manufacturers to be handicapped to any extent by this foreign competition?
    Mr. TENNANT: The answer is in the negative. At any rate this is a matter entirely within the discretion of the Commonwealth Government.
    Mr. HUNT: Is it not within the discretion of our own Government to protect our own manufacturers? If the Government refuse to do anything why are Ministers paid at all?
    Mr. TENNANT: It is certainly not in the province of this Government to dictate to our Oversea Dominions what they shall do in such matters.
    Mr. HUNTrose—
    Mr. SPEAKER: It is no use arguing this question over and over again.

    His Majesty's Office of Works (Direct Employment of Labour).
    Mr. O'GRADYasked the hon. Member for St. George's-in-the-East, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether there is any intention on the part of the Department to reduce or abolish the practice of having new work done by direct labour and having it done by contract; and, if so, will he state the reason for this proposed change of policy?
    Mr. WEDGWOOD BENN (Lord of the Treasury): New works are almost invariably given out to contract, and there is no intention to effect any change of policy.

  LOSS OF STEAMSHIP "TITANIC."

    CONTROL OF FUNDS.
    Mr. SILVESTER HORNEasked the President of the Board of Trade if he can state to the House whether any steps will be taken by the Government to secure public representation and a measure of control in the administration of the funds collected for the relief of sufferers from the "Titanic" disaster?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Buxton): As I informed the hon. Member for Uxbridge, in reply to his question of yesterday, I do not think that the administration of the "Titanic" fund, which was privately subscribed, is a matter in which the Board of Trade, as a Department, ought to interfere.
    Mr. HAY MORGAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman any knowledge as to the amount of money which has been expended?
    Mr. BUXTON: I think it is about £40,000, but I am not sure. There were three or four funds, and all of them have been amalgamated under a joint committee with a view to seeing that the money is properly administered.
    Captain CRAIG: Will the Government refrain from diverting this fund to any other civil purpose or tampering with it as they are doing with the funds of the Church in Wales?
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Lord Mayor asked His Majesty's Government to nominate some representative to serve with the other members of the committee?
    Mr. BUXTON: That was so, and after consultation with those interested we thought that, on the whole, we had better leave it in the hands of those who had asked for subscriptions and the joint committee, in whom we have full confidence.

    Advisers on Trade Matters.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, before appointing advisers on trade matters, inquiries are made as to whether the persons so appointed have any financial interests in any of the matters on which they are called upon to advise?
    Mr. BUXTON: If the question refers to the members of the Board's Advisory Committee on Commercial Intelligence, I can only say that such members are for the
    1040
    most part chosen on account of the knowledge and experience they possess of trade matters. It necessarily follows that they are sometimes financially interested in the questions which come before them. For example, it is frequently the case that the only people competent to give useful advice on the incidence of a new foreign tariff on certain branches of British trade are those directly interested in that trade.
    Mr. CHANCELLOR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a gentleman who has recently become a director of the London General Omnibus Company—
    Mr. SPEAKER: Will the hon. Member kindly hand his question in at the Table?

    Labour Exchanges.
    Mr. COWANasked whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that officers from the Board of Trade Labour Exchanges are calling upon employers of labour informing them verbally that it will be illegal for them to employ workmen not possessing certificates of insurance against unemployment after the 15th July, and that such officers profess themselves unable to answer inquiries at to whether workmen employed in particular trades do or do not come within the scope of Part II. of the National Insurance Act; and whether he will give instructions that all officers employed to deal with such matters shall be put in a position to furnish accurate information on this point?
    Mr. BUXTON: By Section 91 (1) (b) of the Act, binding decisions as to whether any workman or class of workmen is included within the insured trades are given, not by the Board of Trade or by its officials, but by the Umpire appointed by the Crown under Section 89. The Board's officials are immediately informed of the decisions of the Umpire, which are also made public in the official publications of the Board by circular and in other ways. A provisional list of occupations which the Board of Trade, as at present advised, consider to be insured trades has, however, been printed and distributed to employers concerned, together with a statement to the effect that applications to the Umpire should be made by persons desirous of obtaining a final decision as to whether they are included or not. I am sending a copy of this list to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. COWAN: Can the right hon. Gentleman say why the officials of the Labour Exchanges have been making these communications to employers?
    Mr. BUXTON: Naturally they wish to inform employers about the Act coming into force and give such information as they think employers would be glad to have.
    Mr. BARNESasked whether, in view of the fact that Forfar is the county town and the nearest Labour Exchange is situated at Arbroath, which is fifteen miles distant, he will consider the advisability of establishing an Exchange for Forfar and district?
    Mr. BUXTON: A local office of the Unemployment Fund has been established at Forfar. This agency will be connected with the Labour Exchanges at Arbroath and Dundee, and as at present advised I do not think the necessities of the case call for the establishment of an additional Exchange at Forfar.
    Mr. ROBERT HARCOURT: Has the right hon. Gentleman received any representations from this place?
    Mr. BUXTON: I must have notice.

  PORT OF LONDON (STRIKE).

    DELIVERY OF GRAIN.
    Mr. FELLasked the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the recent rise in the price of bread in London; if he is taking any steps to assist the delivery of grain from the ships which are lying in the Port of London unable to secure lighters; and if he can provide any substitute for these lighters or other means of preventing a further rise in the price of bread and the consequent hardship which must follow from it?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): The President of the Board of Trade has asked me to reply to this question. I am aware of the recent rise in the price of bread. The question of the delivery of grain is engaging my serious attention. I have arranged to meet to-morrow representatives of the London millers, and will consult with them upon the subject.
    Mr. FELL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, as the matter is of very great importance, he will grant protection to such of the lightermen as may be willing to work so that this congestion of grain may be relieved and it may be delivered to the mills along the Thames?
    Mr. McKENNA: I understand none of the lightermen on strike are willing to work.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Arising out of that answer, do I understand the rise in the price of bread is due to the strike, and, if so, is that consistent with what the right hon. Gentleman told the House yesterday that the price of food has not risen?
    Mr. McKENNA: I stated yesterday that the price of food had not risen, with the exception of bread, which in the last two or three days had risen.
    Mr. W. THORNE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that even when there is no strike about four master millers decide what is to be the selling price of flour?

    SPEECHES BY MR. BEN TILLETT.
    Mr. FRED HALLasked the Prime Minister if his attention has been called to the speech delivered by Mr. Ben Tillett on 10th June, urging the transport workers on strike to start a civilian force and to arm themselves with the thickest of cudgels in order to assist them in attaining their objects; and whether, in view of the policy of violence thus advocated by the leader of the strikers, he will take effective steps to protect any men wishing to work?
    Mr. HARRY LAWSON: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers, may I ask him, whether his attention has been called to a further speech made by Mr. Ben Tillett threatening violence, and, I believe, even threatening to shoot, against Lord Devonport?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I have not seen any report of the speech in question; effective steps have been and will be taken to protect men willing to work.
    Mr. W. THORNE: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the blacklegs on the "Lady Jocelyn" are already armed?

    POLICE PROTECTION.
    Mr. FRED HALLasked the Home Secretary if he has received any communication from the strike committee of the transport workers protesting against the use of police as blackleg agents; and whether the police have at any time during the present strike taken any action, except with a view to the protection of men desiring to work, from the violence of the strikers?
    Mr. McKENNA: Complaints were made to me that the police had assisted in push-

    1043
    ing loaded wagons up an incline and in raising horses which had fallen. On inquiry I found that the police had done no more than common humanity required; but I issued special instructions that care should be taken not to allow any overloaded wagons to join the convoy. In another case, where complaint was made, it appeared that a constable had driven a cart for a short distance while the driver was suffering from faintness and unable to drive. The police has not, in connection with the present strike, been employed on any duties except the maintenance of order and the prevention of violence or intimidation.
    Mr. FRED HALL: Is the House to assume there is no foundation for the complaint raised by the hon. Member for East Leeds with regard to a police charge at Rotherhithe?
    Mr. McKENNA: I cannot go back on yesterday's debate.
    Mr. O'GRADY: Is it not the fact that the policeman driving the van was doing carmen's work, and therefore black-legging?
    Mr. McKENNA: He only did his obvious duty as the carman was faint.
    Mr. FRED HALL: May I press for an answer to my question?
    Mr. SPEAKER: It does not arise out of the question on the Paper. The hon. Member must put it down.
    Mr. INGLEBYasked the Home Secretary whether the barge "Malcolm" is lying at Deptford Pumping Station loaded with sewer strainings and, owing to the nuisance occasioned, the London County Council has served notice on the contractor to empty the barge at once; and, seeing that owing to his workmen being intimidated the contractor is unable to comply with the notice, whether, in the interests of the people residing near the pumping station, he will provide the necessary protection to enable the contractor to comply with it?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Commissioner of Police reports that the barge "Malcolm" is lying at Deptford Pumping Station as stated; but that it is not the case that the contractor's workmen have been intimidated. They belong to the lightermen's union and refuse to unload the barge without a so-called permit, and this the strike
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    committee decline to issue. If men are available for unloading this barge, the police will supply protection.
    Mr. FRED HALLasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the injury caused to non-unionists desiring to work for the Port Authority; whether he is aware that one man was pushed over a bridge at Purfleet and that some have died from the effects of injuries received at the hands of the strikers; and, if so, what steps he intends to take in order that non-unionists may be allowed to work for their living should they so desire?
    Mr. WILLIAM PEELasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that a dock labourer named Harry Harrington was set upon by strikers in the early hours of Monday last at Purfleet, Essex, and as the result of the severe treatment he received Harrington is now suffering from a broken leg and serious internal injuries; whether this outrage is the natural result of inadequate police protection; and what steps he proposes to take to put a stop to such outrages and to give adequate police protection to persons engaged in lawful occupations?
    Mr. McKENNA: It appears from the reports I have received from the Essex police that Harrington was forced, presumably by strikers, to leave a train in which he was travelling; he fled along the railway line, and tried to escape by hanging over the parapet of a bridge; but he was struck on the fingers, had to lose his hold, and fell twenty feet, breaking his leg. The superintendent of police does not think that any addition to the force at his command would have prevented this outrage. Several workers have been assaulted at Purfleet, but no one has been killed, and so far as I am aware no one but Harrington seriously injured. The Essex police and the Essex magistrates are responsible for maintaining order and preventing crime at Purfleet, and the police have been reinforced by large contingents lent by other police authorities.
    Mr. PEEL: Have any steps been taken to bring to justice the ruffians who assaulted this man?
    Mr. McKENNA: I must have notice of that question. As it does not come under the Metropolitan Police, it would not be within my immediate knowledge. I could not answer the question without notice.
    Mr. PEEL: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to shelter himself behind these technical objections?
    Mr. SPEAKER: That is not a proper observation to make.
    Mr. FRED HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman reply to the last part of my question as to what steps he intends to take in order that non-unionists may be allowed to work for their living should they so desire?
    Mr. McKENNA: Every step is being taken, within the power of the police, in order to protect workmen of all kinds, whether union or non-union men, in obtaining their living.
    Mr. W. THORNE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 300 non-union men at the Albert Dock last night wanted to get out and the police would not let them? They have too much police protection.
    Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.

    Franchise and Registration Bill.
    Mr. COTTONasked the Prime Minister if it is his intention to introduce a Bill for the purpose of the abolition of plural voting at elections this Session; and, if so, when the Bill is likely to be presented to the House?
    Sir JOHN ROLLESTONasked whether it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to adopt the Registration (Plural Qualification) Bill and carry it into law this Session; and whether, if this is to be the case, this Bill is to be regarded as in the place of the proposed Electoral Reform Bill, or whether it is intended to carry both Bills through all their stages this Session?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The Government propose to introduce their Bill dealing with this matter next week, and it will be convenient to defer any statement on the subjects raised in these questions till then.

    Finance Bills (Date of Introduction).
    Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSONasked the Prime Minister whether he will grant the Return showing the date of introduction of the Finance Bill in each year from 1894 to 1912, which stands in the name of the Member for North Down?
    The PRIME MINISTER: A formal. Return seems hardly necessary, but I will circulate a statement with the Votes. [See Written Answers this date.]

    Trade Disputes Act.
    Mr. FRED HALLasked if, in view of the immunity which trade unions now enjoy from punishment for acts of violence and intimidation by their members during strikes and the additional expenditure for providing protection for workers thereby entailed, the Government proposes to take any and, if so, what steps to amend or alter in any way the provisions of the Trade Disputes Act?
    The PRIME MINISTER: In replying to this question I must not be assumed to accept the description contained in it of the present legal position. The Government do not propose to legislate on this subject.

    Sea Fisheries (Territorial Limit).
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the Prime Minister whether he can now make any statement as to the constitution and terms of reference of the Committee which it is proposed to appoint to consider the territorial limit and other questions regarding sea fisheries, and the probable date of appointment?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has consented to act as chairman of the Interdepartmental Committee, and I understand from him that the terms of reference and constitution of the Committee are not yet finally settled.
    Sir A. WILLIAMSON: Arising out of that answer, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has considered the suggestion that a member or members should be appointed on the Commission having special knowledge of the subject from the fishermen's point of view?
    The PRIME MINISTER: Yes, that is being considered.

  ROYAL NAVY.

    SHIPBUILDING, REPAIRS AND MAINTENANCE.
    Sir CLEMENT KINLOCH-COOKEasked the Prime Minister whether he can now say when it is proposed to take Vote 8 of the Naval Estimates?
    The PRIME MINISTER: At any early date after the expiration of the first week in July.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he gave me a definite promise that if I put this question after Whitsuntide he would name a day? I now ask him to name a day?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I shall be glad to do so as soon as possible.

    POSITION OF AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT.
    Mr. WILLIAM REDMONDasked the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the position of the Australian Government in reference to naval affairs under the the new arrangement; and whether any ships, and, if so, what, have been assigned by the Admiralty to the Australian Commonwealth?
    The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Churchill): The position of the Commonwealth Government in relation to naval affairs has undergone no change since it was decided to establish an Australian Navy, commencing with the Fleet Unit which will arrive in Australian waters early next year. To facilitate, however, the provision and training of an adequate personnel for the Fleet Unit, the Admiralty is lending the "Encounter," with a nucleus crew, to the Commonwealth during the period of transition, and the Commonwealth has assented to the withdrawal of certain ships of the existing squadron with their crews. I will take this opportunity of reading to the House the text of the concluding telegram transmitted from the Admiralty to the Commonwealth Government by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies: "The Board of Admiralty desire to express their full concurrence in revised proposals of Australian Government which are satisfactory to the Admiralty, and by setting free a considerable number of trained officers and seamen will materially aid the development of the new Fleet organisation. Admiralty will continue to aid development of Australian Fleet Unit, to which they attach great importance, by every means in their power."

    H.M.S. "MONARCH."
    Mr. BARNESasked the amount received by the Admiralty from the contractors for services rendered by naval ratings on the trial trip of His Majesty's ship "Monarch"; and if the amount in question was equal to the amount which would have been paid by the contractor to his men on the special rates agreed to for such trip?
    Mr. HUDSONasked (1) the amount of the rebate on the contract price of His Majesty's ship "Monarch" received by the Admiralty for work done by naval ratings in place of contractors' workmen when the final acceptance trials were run from the Tyne to Devonport; and (2) what amount of money was saved to the contractor by the Admiralty allowing naval ratings to work the acceptance trials in place of contractors' men on His Majesty's ship "Monarch"?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): As I have already stated, to meet Service requirements in the matter of economising coal, and for purposes of expedition, the acceptance trial was carried out during the passage of the ship to Devonport. If the ordinary procedure had been followed, the vessel would have carried out the trial off the mouth of the Tyne, and would have returned to discharge contractors' workmen. In any case, naval stokers would have been provided for working the boilers. The naval ratings—already drafted to the ship—were requisitioned for attendance on the engines, otherwise the Admiralty would have had to bear the expense of returning the contractors' workmen from Devonport to Newcastle. The departures from the contract involved some extra payments and some rebates, the net result being a rebate of £220. The amount of this rebate directly due to the employment of naval ratings in lieu of civilian engine attendants was not definitely stated in the rebate offered; but when the rebate offered was received it was checked by our own estimates, which covered allowances and messing on the usual scale.
    Mr. HUDSON: What did it save the contractors by taking naval ratings?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I should think the contractor did not save anything. The rebate to us covered it.
    Mr. HUDSON: Will the hon. Gentleman inquire?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have been into all the material at our disposal.
    Lord C. BERESFORD: Would it be possible to put these naval ratings on cheque as extra pay for doing work for other men which other men ought to do?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am afraid I cannot accept that. It would establish a rather important precedent. Naval ratings

    1049
    are detailed for certain duties, and they do that duty. But I do not think I can accept the novel suggestion to give them a special allowance, because they simply carried out the duty for which they were detailed.
    Lord C. BERESFORD: It is very unfair, and the men resent it.

  ROYAL DOCKYARDS.

    SHIPWRIGHTS.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view of the difficulty found in obtaining shipwrights in the Royal dockyards, the Admiralty will consider the advisability of taking on a larger number of apprentices than has been the custom in past years; and whether he will consider the advisability of having two examinations and making two entries annually for all trades?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The Admiralty will continue to fix the number of apprentices of all trades to be entered each year with due regard to all the circumstances. The number of shipwright apprentices entered each year has been steadily on the increase since 1906, and the number to be taken on this year is more than double the number in 1906. The system of having two examinations annually was tried some years ago, but was found to be less satisfactory than the present arrangement, and there is no intention of reverting to it.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Then may I take it that the right hon. Gentleman admits the difficulty mentioned and the desirability of training more shipwrights in the Royal dockyards by means of apprentices?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The number we have taken has been doubled since 1906.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to an Admiralty pamphlet, dated February, 1905, for the information of candidates offering themselves for training in His Majesty's dockyards as naval shipwrights, stating that at the expiration of twelve years' service from the age of eighteen facilities will be given to those who wish it to serve as shipwrights in His Majesty's dockyards, and that the time served from the age of eighteen will count towards superannuation; whether naval shipwrights
    1050
    entering the Royal dockyards after twelve years' service afloat will be immediately established, or whether they will have to wait their turn with dockyard shipwrights; and whether service in the Royal Fleet Reserve gives to naval shipwrights on entering the dockyard service any preference as regards the receipt of a Greenwich age pension?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The facts stated in the first part of the question are correct. The subject of the second part of the question is now under consideration by the Departmental Committee which is dealing with naval shipwrights. The answer to the third part of the question is in the negative.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, if I am correct in the statement in the first part of my question, whether that will not make a difference to the establishment of dockyard shipwrights?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have just told the hon. Member that the statement made in the first part of the question is correct. He obviously did not hear that.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Yes, I did.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The matter is now under the consideration of the Departmental Committee.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: That is not an answer.
    Mr. WILKIE: Is there any reason why there should be any preference given to one section of the shipwrights?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: No, except that in this Order which the hon. Member has quoted certain undertakings have been given, and the Departmental Committee is now considering that.

    MEN INVALIDED FROM ROYAL NAVY.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can give the substance of the recent Admiralty Order dealing with the special employment in His Majesty's dockyards of men invalided from the Royal Navy and the Royal dockyards; whether he is aware that the Order has raised expectations which can only be realised in comparatively few cases: and will he say what the Admiralty proposes to do for men invalided on insufficient pension who, although eligible under the Order, cannot obtain employment in the way specified

    1051
    and who are prevented by the conditions of the Workmen's Compensation Act from getting employment in the open labour market?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The substance of the Order referred to is that rosters should be kept at the dockyards of men invalided from the Royal Navy or Naval Establishments on account of injuries sustained on duty, with a view to finding light employment for such men in as many cases as possible. With regard to the suggestion that this order has raised expectations which can only be realised in comparatively few cases, I have to say that the Order itself closed with a statement pointing out that the number of men for whom light employment can be found must necessarily be small. Certainly, wherever opportunity offers, it is our desire to treat the cases of these men sympathetically, and thus, by finding light employment, augment the amount of pension or compensation allowance awarded. But the necessities of dockyard work do not, as I have said, offer many such opportunities.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government propose to do anything for these men who have such very small pensions? If they do not receive any assistance from the Government, they are compelled to go to the workhouse.
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I have said we do our best to find light employment for them, but the opportunities are not many.

    ADMIRALTY COMMISSIONAIRES.
    Mr. BARNESasked the wages paid per week, the hours, and the conditions of service in respect to pension of the commissionaires employed by the Admiralty in the Admiralty offices?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Commissionaires are only employed at the Admiralty in temporary vacancies. When so employed they work the ordinary messengers' hours and receive the usual pay for commissionaires, namely, 21s. a week. My impression is that my hon. Friend has in mind the messengers at the Admiralty office. On that assumption let me add that the initial rate of pay for pensioner messengers at the Admiralty is 21s. a week, but 25 per cent. of the total number employed may be advanced by annual increments of 1s. to 24s. a week. In addition, special allowances are authorised for messengers employed
    1052
    in the more responsible positions. The ordinary hours of attendance are from 9.30 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., with a half-holiday on Saturday so far as the work of the office admits. Overtime and Sunday attendances are paid for at the rate of 6d. an hour. Twelve days ordinary leave, with pay, is allowed, in addition to Bank holidays and public holidays; and sixteen days' sick leave on three-quarters pay in any twelve months, with an extension in cases of severe illness or other special circumstances. Messengers draw their naval or marine pensions whilst serving, and are eligible for gratuities on discharge under the ordinary rules applicable to hired employés under Section 4 of the Superannuation Act, 1887. Uniform is provided by the Crown.

    Housing and Town Planning (Scotland).
    Mr. FREDERICK WHYTEasked the Secretary for Scotland whether he can state the number of requests made to the Local Government Board for Scotland by local authorities for assistance in preparing schemes under the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, and the names of the local authorities making such requests; the number of schemes actually prepared and submitted to the Board; and the number of such schemes which have been approved by the Board?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): The Local Government Board for Scotland have been consulted with regard to proposed town planning schemes for the burghs of Bo'ness, Buck-haven, Clydebank, Dundee, Dunfermline, Edinburgh, Gourock, Inverkeithing, Leven, Pollokshaws, Partick, Rutherglen, and Wishaw, and for certain county areas in the suburban district of Edinburgh, the Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy districts of Fife, and the Middle Ward District of Lanark. Particulars were published recently in the Board's Report for 1911 (Cd. 6192 of 1912, pages lix.-lxvi). No schemes have actually been submitted for approval, but the Board have authorised the preparation of schemes for the burghs of Dunfermline and Inverkeithing, and hope to do so shortly in connection with three separate schemes for the burgh of Dundee.

    St. Andrews Harbour.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAYasked the Secretary for Scotland if he can give any information as to the action of the Fishery Board with regard to St. Andrews harbour; whether he can state what sum

    1053
    will be available for its improvement; and when the money will be forthcoming?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I am not yet in a position to make any statement on the subject.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Is it the fact that £1,500 has been devoted to this cause?
    Mr. McKINNON WOOD: I must ask for notice.
    Major ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Nothing is known?

    Liverpool Education Authority.
    Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education if he is aware that at the recent Assizes at Liverpool Mr. Peter Smith, chief secretary of elementary education under the Liverpool local education authority, was tried for forgery and larceny, and that, though Mr. Smith was acquitted by the jury, the judge stated that this office, meaning the Liverpool Education Committee's office, needs overhauling; whether any report on the affairs and accounts of the Liverpool Education Committee has since been asked for by the Board; and whether any action will be taken to restore public confidence in the administration of education in Liverpool?
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): The internal administration of their offices is a matter solely for the local education authorities, and I do not propose to take any action.

    Pit Sinking (Accidents).
    Mr. JOHN WARDasked the Home Secretary whether he is able to give the number of men engaged in pit sinking and the number of accidents, fatal and otherwise, which occurred to these men during each of the last ten years?
    Mr. McKENNA: The figures of persons engaged and of accidents occurring in sinking pits are not tabulated separately, and the only information which I can give my hon. Friend is the number of fatal accidents, which I have had specially extracted from the lists of fatal accidents in the annual reports. I will circulate the information. I should add that the number of persons engaged in sinking operations is very fluctuating, and the workers are a migratory class who may be employed in one part of the country at one time, and in another part of the country or abroad
    1054
    at another time. [See Written Answers this date.]
    Mr. J. WARDasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the fatal accident which recently occurred while pit sinking at Blackwood, South Wales; whether his Department was represented at the inquiry; and what was the nature of their Report as to the cause and circumstances of the same?
    Mr. McKENNA: My attention has been called to the accident at the Markham Colliery, to which I understand the question to refer. The inquest has not yet taken place; it was formally opened last month, and has been adjourned to a date not yet fixed. My Department will be represented at the adjourned inquest by the Inspector of Mines for the Division. I am not in a position to make any statement as to the cause of the disaster at present.
    Mr. J. WARDasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been called to the evidence given at the inquest at the Blackwood pit-sinking accident, to the effect that the chargemen regularly worked twelve hours; and, seeing that this is contrary to the Mines Regulation Acts, will he state what action he proposes to take?
    Mr. McKENNA: I am informed that the chargemen sinkers were working twelve-hour spells. This time, however, includes time spent on the surface. I have no information at present before me to show that any infringement of the Act has been committed, but I will cause inquiry to be made in regard to the matter.

    Missing Women and Girls.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked how many girls and young women have been reported to the police as missing during the last twelve months, and have not yet been found?
    Mr. McKENNA: During the twelve months ending the 31st May fifty-four girls and young women were reported to the Metropolitan Police as missing who have not yet been found. Of these fifteen were under sixteen years of age, and thirty-nine were between sixteen and twenty-one years of age. I have no information as regards other police forces.

    Vivisection.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Home Secretary whether, although the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, purports to

    1055
    protect animals from suffering through vivisectional experiments, persons licensed under the Act are allowed to hold certificates enabling them to perform experiments without anæsthetics and to keep animals alive after the effects of the anæsthetic have passed off; and whether his attention has been called to the statement made before the Royal Commission by Sir William Byrne, of the Home Office, that the framework of the Act was to lay down a number of very strict conditions and then to allow all except three to be removed by certificate; and whether, under these circumstances, he can see his way to introduce legislation dealing with this state of affairs?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Act provides for the grant of the special certificates referred to, but the scope and operation of these certificates cannot conveniently be stated within the limits of an answer in the House. They are fully described in the Report of the Royal Commission, and it is, I believe, well known that vivisection in the sense of cutting operations without anæsthetics is not allowed in this country. I am aware of the statement quoted, and can only repeat what I said in reply to a question the other day, that all the recommendations of the Royal Commission are being carefully considered.
    Mr. CHANCELLORasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware of the complaints made by vivisectors at the exhibition in shop windows in Piccadilly, Oxford Street, and elsewhere, of instruments used by them in the vivisection of animals, and of illustrations and descriptions of vivisectional experiments which are reproduced from medical papers; and whether he can see his way to introduce a short Bill to abolish the practice?
    May I explain that the word "practice" at the end refers not to the exhibitions but to vivisection which makes such exhibitions necessary.
    Mr. McKENNA: I am aware that complaints have been made of certain methods adopted by the opponents of vivisection on the ground that they are calculated to mislead the public. The complaints appear from the Report of the Royal Commission to be well founded; but a measure to prevent misrepresentation in matters of controversy seems to me at present to be outside the region of practical politics.

    Bury Market (Disturbance).
    Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary whether he can now state the reasons why he refused to revise the sentence passed by the magistrates of Bury, Lancashire, on A. R. Desmond, who was last month convicted in connection with a disturbance arising out of a duly advertised meeting in Bury market place on 7th May last?
    Mr. McKENNA: It would be impossible for me to explain by way of question and answer in this House my reasons for advising, or declining to advise, the exercise of the clemency of the Crown in individual cases. I can only say that in this case I could find no sufficient reason for interference with the order of the Justices. The prisoner, however, could have obtained his release at any time by entering into a recognisance to be of good behaviour.

    Deportation of Aliens.
    Mr. LANE-FOXasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been directed to the case of a Russian Jew, giving the name of Nat Samuel, who was charged with three offences of housebreaking at Hull before the stipendiary magistrate on 4th June; whether he is aware that it was stated in Court that this man had been three times previously convicted, twice in London and once in Manchester, and that on each of these occasions he had been ordered to be deported but had subsequently returned to this country; and whether he can secure a more effective administration of the Aliens Act by which such foreign aliens may be permanently excluded from the United Kingdom?
    Mr. McKENNA: Yes, Sir, I am fully aware of all the circumstances of this case, and I am glad to say that the Court has convicted this alien as an incorrigible rogue for the repeated contraventions of the expulsion order, and has committed him with hard labour to Quarter Sessions for sentence. This is the right way to enforce the penalty of expulsion. It is quite impossible to secure that any given individual shall not at any time set foot on these shores. I would refer the hon. Member to the remarks on this subject contained in the last Report under the Aliens Act which has been presented to Parliament.

    Alleged Kidnapping (Kentish Town).
    Mr. KINGasked the Home Secretary whether the Metropolitan Police are

    1057
    investigating the case of Frederick J. Haverley, of Lawford Road, Kentish Town, who is stated to have been kidnapped, drugged, bound, tortured, imprisoned, and branded by certain persons unknown; and whether he can report any elucidation of the mysteries of this case?
    Mr. McKENNA: The matter has been carefully investigated by the police. I understand there are no mysteries in this case. It is a case of hallucination.

    Shops Act, 1912.
    Mr. HAROLD SMITHasked the Home Secretary whether he will consider an extension of the Shops Act, 1912, to such persons as bakers, cooks, and kitchen staff engaged in bakehouses and restaurants who, though working on premises which come within the scope of the Act, are now excluded from its benefits by reason of the fact that they are not wholly or mainly employed in the serving of customers?
    Mr. McKENNA: The Shops Act has only just come into force, and it is much too early to consider the question of an extension of its provisions. Some experience of its working will be necessary before further legislation is undertaken. I may point out that bakehouses are subject to the provisions of the Factory Act.

    Rag Flock Act.
    Lord ALEXANDER THYNNEasked the President of the Local Government Board the date on which it is proposed to issue the Regulations under the Bag Flock Act; and whether arrangements are being made with the necessary Departments for similar regulations to be adopted in regard to Scotland and Ireland?
    The PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Burns): The Regulations under the Rag Flock Act were issued on the 10th instant, and will come into operation on 1st July. I am informed that the Local Government Boards for Scotland and Ireland intend to make regulations similar to those made for England and Wales.

    Poor Law Belief
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the action of the Croydon Board of Guardians in reducing the out-relief given to Mrs. Bushell, a widow with five children,
    1058
    the youngest being under six months old, from 9s. to 8s. a week; whether the guardians alleged that the reason for this was that the woman's mother-in-law, who is bed-ridden, was in receipt of an old age pension; and whether he proposes to take any steps to secure that the Old Age Pension Act shall not be used to penalise daughters-in-law who require to come upon the Poor Law?
    Mr. BURNS: I am making inquiries into this matter, and will communicate with the hon. Member.

    Argentine Beef (Tuberculosis Lesions).
    Mr. STANIERasked the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the Report of Dr. Collingridge to the Corporation of London in which he states that for some time past tuberculosis lesions have been found in Argentine beef in the central markets; and what action he has taken in the matter?
    Mr. BURNS: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The matter has been investigated by my Inspectors of Foods, and I have asked the Foreign Office to communicate with the Argentine Government on the subject.
    Mr. STANIER: Is it not a fact that Dr. Collingridge stated that each of the pieces of beef had borne the stamp of the Argentine Government, purporting to indicate that the animal from which it was taken had undergone a rigid inspection, and does not the right hon. Gentleman consider this a serious question?
    Mr. BURNS: Yes, that paragraph is in that particular Report, but I shall have much pleasure in showing the hon. Member other paragraphs in that Report which it is important he should read and understand.

    Alwyn Valley Waterworks.
    Mr. JOHN WARDasked the Postmaster-General whether the letters for the villagers of Alwyn Valley Waterworks are taken into the contractor's office and sorted by an official of the contractor and then delivered by a man in postman's uniform who is also an official of the contractor; that, as a result, the contractor's officials are made acquainted with the nature of their workmen's correspondence; whether his Department will make some arrangements by which the work-

    1059
    men on public works of this character may-carry on their correspondence without the knowledge of their employer?
    The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Captain Norton): I am having inquiry made in the matter, and will communicate the result to the hon. Member.

    Letters for Melbourne, Australia.
    Mr. COWANasked the Postmaster-General whether letters intended for Melbourne, Australia, are frequently sent to Melbourne in Derbyshire or to Melbourne in Yorkshire; and whether, considering the comparative unimportance of these two places, he will give directions that all letters addressed "Melbourne," without any further indication of locality, shall be sent to Melbourne in the State of Victoria?
    Captain NORTON: A letter addressed to "Melbourne" without further indication of locality would be sent in ordinary course to Melbourne, Derbyshire, or Melbourne, Yorkshire. In the case of a letter intended for either of these places the course suggested by the hon. Member would result in delay amounting to more than nine weeks as a minimum, while in the case of a letter intended for Melbourne, Australia, the delay arising from the present practice would rarely amount to as many days. I am not prepared to alter the existing practice.

INDUSTRIAL UNREST.

  REFERENCE TO INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL.
  Sir GEORGE TOULMIN: I wish to ask the Prime Minister a question, of which I have given him private notice: Whether he has any statement to make to the House with regard to any action the Government propose to take in reference to industrial unrest?
  The PRIME MINISTER: From the experience derived from the industrial disputes which have lately occurred, it has become evident that one of the chief difficulties in the way of peaceful and friendly relations between employers and men is the want of effective methods for securing the due observance of industrial agreements by both sides. Further, where agreements are come to between employers and workmen in regard to conditions of employment, the agreement, though binding on those who are parties to it, is not
  1060
  binding on the whole of the trade or district. These matters affect the employers and the workmen alike, and it seems essential to ascertain: (1) what is the best method of securing the due fulfilment of industrial agreements; (2) how far industrial agreements which are made between representative bodies of employers and of workmen should be enforced throughout the particular trade or district.
  The Government are anxious to have inquiry made into the matter, and to receive advice from those best qualified to give it. In these circumstances they propose to refer the above questions to the Industrial Council, which is representative of the employers and of the men in the great industries of the country; to request the Council carefully to consider the matter; to take such evidence as they may think fit; and to report to the Government any conclusions to which they may come. The view of the Government has been strengthened by the following resolution of the Industrial Council, who considered the matter yesterday:—
  "The question of the maintenance of industrial agreements having come before the Industrial Council, that Council are of opinion that this subject is of the highest importance to employers and trade unions and workpeople generally, and would welcome an immediate inquiry into the matter,"
  The Resolution was agreed to unanimously. The Government are therefore requesting the Industrial Council to undertake the inquiry, and they will give the most earnest attention to any recommendations which the Council may be able to make.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Do we understand that the terms of reference to the Industrial Council will strictly limit them not merely to an inquiry as to the best means-of having agreements carried out, but will limit them to considering the proposal made by the Government? Will reference-be wider than was indicated in the right hon. Gentleman's answer, or will it be confined within those limits?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps I may read again the two questions which it is proposed to refer to the Industrial Council. They are: (1) What is the best method of securing the due fulfilment of industrial agreements; and (2) how far industrial agreements made between representative bodies of employers and of workmen should be enforced throughout the particular trade or district? Those are the two questions we propose to refer to them.
  Mr. BONAR LAW: Does not the second head of reference limit the freedom of the Industrial Council rather more than is desirable, and would it not be better to leave the Council to consider themselves the best methods of securing the fulfilment of these agreements?
  The PRIME MINISTER: It is intended that they should. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that the words are not adequate for that purpose, I will have them remoulded to make it perfectly clear. I quite agree that should be within the purview of the inquiry.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Can the right hon. Gentleman say, first, whether the Industrial Council is going to have any power to spend money in the furtherance of this inquiry; secondly, is the Industrial Council itself going to sit as a Committee of Inquiry, and undertake to hear witnesses and take evidence; and is it the intention of the Government, or has he considered it, that the evidence is to be published as well as the Report of the Industrial Council?
  The PRIME MINISTER: In regard to the first point, whatever funds are necessary for the purpose will certainly be put at their disposal. I think it is clear that evidence from all quarters will be admissible. As regards the desirability of the publication of the evidence, that might well be deferred to a later stage.
  Mr. CLYNES: With reference to the bearing of the announcement on the existing transport strike, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the representatives of the men have published a statement announcing their desire for a settlement on honourable terms, and whether such settlement is not delayed or prevented by the employers' refusal to meet the representatives of the men?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I hardly think that arises out of the answer, but I may repeat what I have already said, that so far as the Government are concerned their good offices are still at the disposal of either party.
  Mr. RAMSAY MACDONALD: Before deciding to allow the matter of the publication of evidence to remain over for some time, would not the Government consider that unless it makes up its mind now whether the evidence is going to be published or not, it may get itself into a very
  1062
  serious difficulty when certain witnesses may give evidence under the impression that it is private and certain witnesses may give evidence under the impression that it is to be public, and, there being a conflict of opinion on the part of the witnesses, the Government may then find itself in a position which will make it unable to publish the evidence at all?
  The PRIME MINISTER: Those are very important points, and the Government will consult the Industrial Council. Perhaps the hon. Member will repeat the question on Monday.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
Mr. BONAR LAW: May I ask what the Business will be next week?
The PRIME MINISTER: On Monday, the Franchise and Registration Bill will be introduced.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Committee stage of the Government of Ireland Bill will be continued.
On Thursday we shall take, in Committee of Supply, the Valuation Vote.
Friday is a private Members' day.
Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Can the right hon. Gentleman now give us any indication when further progress will be made with the Budget?
The PRIME MINISTER: If the right hon. Gentleman will repeat the question on Monday, I think I can give him a definite date.
Resolved, "That the Proceedings of the Government of Ireland Bill have precedence this day of the Business of Supply." —[The Prime Minister.]

PORT OF LONDON (STRIKE).

  PROTECTION OF WORKMEN.
  Sir W. BYLES: Might I ask a question on a point of Order. Whether it is not an abuse of the rules and practice of the House for an hon. Member to move the Closure on a Debate a moment after he has voted for its adjournment—that is to say, for its continuance?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I should have thought it was very praiseworthy, for the hon. Member then sees what is the feeling of the

  1063
  House, and, having ascertained that it is anxious to bring the Debate to an end, he then proceeds to move the Closure.
  Mr. KING: May I also allude to a matter arising out of the conclusion of the Debate last night? I find, on consulting the OFFICIAL REPORT of yesterday's proceedings, that it is stated that at the conclusion of the Attorney-General's speech the Prime Minister rose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put." But, on reference to the Votes and Proceedings, there is no record that the Prime Minister moved the Closure. When we find the two official records of the House in conflict, which are we to believe; and, under the special circumstances of this case, can some correction be made in the one or the other to bring them into accord?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I am very sorry the discrepancy should have arisen. The Votes and Proceedings are the authoritative statement as to what occurred. Of course, the OFFICIAL REPORT will be brought eventually into accord with that. I must take upon myself the blame for the mistake having arisen. What happened was, as far as I could see, that at one minute to eleven the Prime Minister rose and the Noble Lord (Lord Hugh Cecil) also rose. There was then, as the hon. Member will remember, a considerable amount of excitement and some noise in the House, and the result was that the observations of neither reached my ears. I thought the Prime Minister, seeing that there was still a minute left, had given way for the moment to the Noble Lord with the view of allowing him to ask some question. Therefore I called upon the Noble Lord. I was not aware that the Prime Minister had moved the Closure. The sound did not reach my ears. The hon. Member is aware of what happened afterwards. Then it occurred to me at a later period, in thinking the matter over, that possibly when the Prime Minister rose he had moved the Closure, although I had not heard it, and then I discovered that it had been entered on the Votes and Proceedings, but as it did not reach my ears, and as I had not considered it and certainly had not refused it, I did not think it right that the entry should appear.
  The PRIME MINISTER: Perhaps I may be allowed to say that I did rise with the intention of moving the Closure and I moved it so far as I could. I am not alto-
  1064
  gether surprised, under the circumstances, that my intention was not conveyed as far as the Chair.
  Mr. PEEL: Does not the difficulty arise from the fact that Ministers always move the Closure in words which do not reach the rest of the House?
  Mr. SPEAKER: However distinctly they were pronounced last night there would have been great difficulty in reaching my ears. The hon. Member will remember that I could not hear what the Noble Lord said either. It was not until he came to the Chair that I was able to make out what the Motion was that he wished to move.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, baronet, for the Borough of Hythe.
BILLS PRESENTED.
  CRUELTY TO ANIMALS BILL.
  "To extend the operation of the Protection of Animals Act, 1911." Presented by Mr. GEORGE GREENWOOD; supported by Mr. Morrell, Mr. Cathcart Wason, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. Alden, Mr. Black, Mr. MacCallum Scott, and Mr. Crawshay Williams; to be read a second time upon Thursday next, and to be printed.
  PEDLARS' ACT (1871) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend the Pedlars' Act, 1871, as regards persons for whom certificates shall not be required." Presented by Mr. GIBBS; supported by Mr. Walter Long, Sir William Howell Davies, Mr. Charles Duncan, and Mr. William Redmond; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed.

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
Further considered in Committee [Progress, 11th June].
[Mr. WHITLEY in the Chair.]

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

  CLAUSE 1.—(Establishment of Irish Parliament.)
  (1) On and after the appointed day there shall be in Ireland an Irish Parliament consisting of His Majesty the King and two Houses, namely, the Irish Senate and the Irish House of Commons.
  (2) Notwithstanding the establishment of the Irish Parliament or anything contained in this Act, the supreme power and authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected and un-diminished over all persons, matters, and things within His Majesty's Dominions.
  Amendment proposed [11th June]: In Sub-section (1) after the word "shall" ["there shall be in Ireland"], to insert the words "subject to the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Londonderry being excluded from the provisions of this Act." —[Mr. Agar-Robartes.]
  Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted." Debate resumed.
  4.0 P.M.
  Sir EDWARD CARSON: Although the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bonar Law), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), and the right, hon. Gentleman the Member for the Strand Division (Mr. Long), the latter two being ex-Chief Secretaries for Ireland, have already stated the general view that is taken on this side of the House with regard to this particular Amendment—and I may say at the outset that, so far as I know, there is no difference of opinion at all as between the Irish Members upon our side of the House, and the Unionist Members for whom the Leader of the Opposition has already spoken have made that clear—I think it is natural that I should ask leave to say something on an Amendment which to me, at all events, appears to be the most vital Amendment which probably can be moved during the whole of the discussions in Committee on the Bill. I doubt very much if the House, or if even the Government, realise the vast importance of the question which engaged us for a few hours the other day, and which is now engaging us at the present moment. It is quite true—at least so far as I can ascertain, and certainly so far as I recollect—that when the Home Rule Bill of 1893 was before this House this question of the separate treatment of Ulster was never raised. But may I point out that the proceedings in this House, and the desirability of sending such a question as this before the country, are looked upon by the Government of the present day in an entirely different way from what they were looked upon by Mr. Gladstone and the constitutional statesmen of twenty years ago. I beg the House to recollect that
  1066
  what we are engaged in now is the settling probably of the final form in which this Bill is to become law. [Cheers.] I am glad that hon. Gentlemen opposite indicate by their cheers that they accept that view. The matter to me is one of very vast importance, and one which gives me very great responsibility.
  Under the Parliament Act, if the Parliament Act is going to be used to force this Bill upon the North of Ireland, this Bill, if it passes the House of Commons this year and is rejected by the House of Lords, would have to go up in exactly the same form in the next two years. That is, the procedure if the Parliament Act is to be used to turn this Bill into an effective Act of Parliament. That throws upon the House now a very great responsibility. I doubt if the Government have seriously considered that responsibility. I certainly have not gathered anything in their speeches—I have heard most of them, and I have read others this morning—which would show that they have given any real and serious consideration to this question at all. I am all the more surprised at that because of the speeches which were made by the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Churchill), and by the Foreign Secretary (Sir Edward Grey) in the Second Reading Debate on this Bill. They certainly gave the impression—though their words were, I admit, somewhat misty; I wish on these subjects people would talk plainly instead of placing their opinions in misty or diplomatic terms as is the habit of the Foreign Secretary—they gave the impression to this House and probably to the country that they themselves, if this question of Ulster was pressed in the course of these Debates, had some alternative to offer other than that they should force the proposals in the Bill against their expressed will on the people of Ulster. So far as the matter now stands, the Government tell us that they have no alternative. I take it, therefore, that we are entitled to say that the meaning of the Government is this: whatever the opposition of what the Chief Secretary calls the million or over a million people of these counties may be—I will come to the other counties in a few moments—to being driven out of their present rights, because remember, they are not asking for anything, they are only asking to stay where they are— whatever their opposition to being driven out of the rights under which they were born, and under which they have lived and flourished, the Government now proclaim to the electors and people of this

  1067
  country that their only alternative is coercion in that part of Ireland. Let that be clearly understood. I think that is a very serious position. I will say a word about that in a moment.
  I know we are subject to a great deal of scoffing on these matters. I have been the subject of scoffing myself, but I do not mind it. I think the Chief Secretary knows that it is a serious matter, and I dare say the Prime Minister knows, though probably he is not so intimately acquainted with Ireland as the Chief Secretary, that this question of driving the Ulster people out of your community— because that is what it comes to in plain language—is a matter that is exercising a great many people even on the other side of politics. There have been speeches already made in the course of the Debate in that sense. Some of them have been encouraging to us, and, at all events, they are encouraging in the sense that they show us that the people are thinking about it. We have advanced somewhat from the position of indifference or apathy when people think that there is an important question involved in this matter, and when other people have been putting forward various alternative schemes. One hon. Gentleman, I think it was the hon. Member for Stirlingshire (Dr. Chapple), though I am not quite certain, made the suggestion that the North-East of Ireland should be tacked on to Scotland. I think when he was brought to the frame of mind to make that proposal he must have thought that anything was better than driving us under the rule of a Parliament in Dublin. Other proposals have been made by very serious men. There was a proposal made by the Rev. Dr. Horton, a very ardent supporter, particularly of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said the proper means is to pass your Home Rule Bill as it is, and let all the Protestants of Ireland emigrate to England. Well, he thought that was better for them than to remain under Home Rule in Ireland. And mind you, I desire to speak of the Rev. Dr. Horton, whom I know personally, with very great respect. He is a very cultivated man, who has studied this question with very great care, and I do not believe for a moment he put that forward as a mere haphazard suggestion or without consideration. I believe he put it forward because he thought these people would not be able to live in Ireland under the pro-
  1068
  posals the Government have now brought forward. Then there was another proposal made equally interesting, but I think equally impractical. That was a proposal by the Rev. Mr. Hocking, who said the real thing was, "Go on with your Bill, I am a Home Ruler; pass it through, and immediately proceed to destroy the Catholic clergy in Ireland." I think, although he was over and investigated this question on the spot, he knows very little of the Irish people and their attachment to religion if he believes that he would be able to destroy either the priests or the Catholics of Ireland. I have no sympathy with his views—none whatever. Therefore, when these matters are really agitating the public mind, I think we ought to look very closely into this question, and we ought to expect very grave arguments from hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite as to the reason why they are going to oppose this Amendment. I shall examine the arguments which have been given up to this stage, at least so far as I understand them, as well as I can, but before doing so I should like to say that I am not going for a moment—it would not be worth while—to follow the exact form of the Amendment, but to deal with the basic principle. Other matters can be settled afterwards. For example, I myself would certainly never agree to leave out Tyrone or Fermanagh which, I believe, come essentially under every principle that applies to the counties mentioned in the Amendment. But that, I believe, is a geographical matter which we may pass by at present, because it would require further consideration. There is another observation I wish to make before I proceed to analyse the proposals a little more in detail. The hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Cowan), who spoke the other day, said that "if the Unionist Members from Ireland would accept this Amendment as a settlement of this question—as a compromise of this question—and help us to proceed with this Bill, then I will vote for it." Let him not give any vote under any misapprehension. We do not accept this Amendment as a compromise of the question. There is no compromise possible. We believe that Home Rule would be disastrous for the rest of Ireland, and—because he offers what would be merely a simple act of justice to a portion of Ulster—why should we on that ground abandon our position in regard to a policy which we believe harmful to Ireland?

  1069
  Having said so much, let me proceed to a further examination of this question. I, at all events, desire to do so without any heat whatsoever. I know that some hon. Members may think that is not a sincere statement. It is perfectly sincere. I have never approached any subject in the whole course of my public life which has given more trouble than the question of the Amendment which is now before the House. I have certainly not undertaken the duty—which is not the kind of duty I care for—in relation to this Bill out of any personal motive to myself. It can be nothing but irksome, and I do so solely because I believe there is a question that has arisen between these two countries which may prove one of the most vital questions which this nation has ever had to deal with. First then, in approaching this question. I believe that one of the things that affect men's minds in the consideration of it is as to what you really believe to be the attitude of Ulster. Do you really believe that Ulster is in earnest in her opposition? I do not mean in earnest in the sense of differing on a political matter. This is not a political matter to Ulster. They look upon it, or I believe they look upon it, as a matter affecting their lives, their liberties, their employment and everything that goes to make up what man holds dear in life. I believe that they are right in doing that, but whether they are right or whether they are wrong I want the House if they will, to approach the consideration of this question with the understanding that that at all events is the attitude of Ulster in regard to this matter. That is what you have to conquer. That is what you will have to put down, and you will have to put it down, not regarding Ulster as an isolated part of this kingdom, but you will have to put it down as I believe with the great and vast majority of the people of this country sympathising deeply with the fact that men are being driven against their will out of the community to which they are attached. I believe that Ulster has every reason for taking up this attitude. When I talk of Ulster for this Amendment I talk of the counties mentioned in the Amendment which include Belfast.
  To those who tell me that the Union has failed in Ireland I say look to Belfast and the North-East corner of Ulster. They are a product of the Union. It is under the Union that they have grown and flourished, and it is no wonder when you
  1070
  come to analyse what has happened in that not at all most favoured part, by nature, of Ireland that the people are wedded to the system which has developed their liberty and their prosperity to the extent which it has done. I do not like wearying the House, but I would like to ask, has any hon. Gentleman opposite read the report of the council of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, which has been passed upon this Bill within the last few days. I am perfectly sure that responsible Ministers opposite, whatever other hon. Members opposite may do, will hardly call the Chamber of Commerce of Belfast a mere handful of Orangemen, as if that disposes of the argument. Even if they do, it does not matter. Here are then great merchants who preside over some of the largest industrial concerns in the United Kingdom. Of four or five of the very largest they give figures and details in the report, which I wish every man would learn and understand before he decided to act against the views of these people in the North of Ireland. Of these details I will only give one or two. Since the last Home Rule Bill was before the House the population of Belfast has increased by about 140,000, or very nearly 50 per cent. At the present moment pauperism in Belfast—I mention the fact, having regard to some of the attacks that have been made on Belfast for political purposes, and which are utterly untrue and unworthy—is the lowest of any city in the United Kingdom, being only 107 per 10,000, as against 296 in Dublin, 336 in Cork, 263 in Glasgow, 228 in Manchester, 220 in Liverpool, 209 in Bristol, and 210 the average of the United Kingdom. And then they go on to say this:—
  "In considering the industrial growth of Belfast as illustrated by the foregoing statistics, it is important to recollect that coal and practically all the raw materials for our industries, such as iron, steel, flax, tobacco, grain, etc., have to be imported, and that it is outside of Ireland that the chief markets for our products are found. The fact that our industrial growth is due to the development of trade with England and Scotland, and is also of an international character, and further that the amount of trade done by our shipbuilding and manufacturing concerns for Irish clients is comparatively trivial, amply justifies our desire for the maintenance always of the closest relations with Great Britain and the complete association with the world-wide prestige of the United Kingdom in which we freely participate."
  Then they say:—
  "Why should we be driven by force to abandon the conditions which have led to that success? We can imagine no conceivable reason —no fault that we have committed—which will justify the treatment which this Bill prepares for us. We are to be driven out of our present close connection with England and Scotland; we are to be deprived of the power to control our own future; and we are to be handed over to the govern-

  1071
  ment and guidance of men of whose principles we disapprove, and whose capacity has never been applied towards the practical advancement of the material interests of the country."
  As to the question of safeguards, which is so constantly put forward, and which was again put forward by the Prime Minister the day before yesterday, they say they view the safeguards as nominal and of no practical value. This view would seem to be confirmed by Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who, speaking on the Second Reading, said:—
  "I admit that while we preserve Imperial supremacy for purposes of this Parliament in theory over the Irish Parliament, in practice we shall have to go out of our way to exercise that supremacy. I do not wish to see this done."
  And passing over a great deal that is well worth studying in this report, they say:—
  "With our firmly established position in the Empire we are perfectly satisfied. The trade and commerce of Ireland are hampered by no qualifications or conditions which do not equally affect every part of the United Kingdom. Indeed, it is beyond controversy that under the rule of the Imperial Parliament the country as a whole has obtained benefits and advantages which would never have been secured under any Irish Government. Therefore, as patriotic Irishmen, we protest against a change more than ever uncalled for and, as we believe, fraught with disaster to our country; a change under which the peculiar industrial interests of this portion of Ireland would be at the mercy of a permanent majority with antagonistic ideals and methods."
  Those are the kind of facts which are burned into the hearts of these men, which they believe are to be attributed to the connection with this country. Do not you think that they are right? Do you not think that they are the very kind of things that men will struggle to the very end and the most desperate end to maintain rather than run the risk of what is at best a gamble on the future? If that is the position, let us try to put down shortly what is the proposition that a statesman has to make with reference to this matter. I am bound to argue this matter in Committee at the present moment, and particularly having regard to the Parliament Act on the assumption that this Bill is going to become law. There is no other way of dealing in Committee. I am also entitled to argue on the assumption that it is going to be part of a federal system for the United Kingdom. That was told us by the Prime Minister. In these circumstances, what have we got? We have got among our citizens a homogeneous community perfectly satisfied with the conditions under which they are at present living, who have flourished under those conditions, "who are indeed a product of those condi-
  1072
  tions. They say, "We want to remain in this position"; they say, "We have never yet been told, and no one has been told, what benefit we can get by being driven out of this position"; because, after all, you can say of the South and West of Ireland that they will get a sentimental benefit, if they think that that is of equal value to the material benefit, and I am not underrating it. In the circumstances, is the Statesman going to say, "My business is to coerce you against your will, to drive you out of what you are satisfied with into what you feel so passionately opposed to, that you will even feel bound to resist it"? Is that the only solution a statesman can give to this question? Is that what is going to be laid down by the Government as the last word on these conditions?
  If it is, have not we a right to ask, where is your precedent, Where is the precedent for driving out of a community against their will people who are satisfied with it? You are always referring to Colonial examples. I happened to be Solicitor-General at the time when the Australian Commonwealth Bill was passed. You never would have passed that Bill if every single Clause had not been agreed to by every single one of the communities concerned. I remember seeing sitting in that Gallery representatives from every community interested in that Bill. I remember up to the very last moment our having conferences with them, so that we might not have a single Clause in the Bill which was not agreed to by every single one of these representatives; and do you mean to tell me that if one of those communities had come before this House and said, "We decline to come in because we are passionately attached to what we believe is a better form of Government" your reply would have been, "If you do not come in we will send out our troops to compel you to come in?" If you did you would have lost your Colony. Take the Transvaal, about which people are always talking. If the Transvaal had refused to give up its autonomous position, and to come into the Union which created the Union Parliament, and took away part of the privileges of that autonomous position, would you have forced the Transvaal, would you have forced Natal, would you have forced the Cape? After all, the 1,030,000 people, the number of inhabitants of these four counties, are really a larger community than, say, New Zealand. They are a larger community than any single provincial Parliament in Canada or in

  1073
  other parts of our Empire; and I cannot for the life of me see why it is you approach this question as regards Ulster in an entirely different frame of mind from what you would have approached the settlement of any other question relating to satisfying the loyalist citizens of the Empire. The only reason can be that you allow yourselves to be overborne and influenced by the other Members from Ireland. Then, again, in relation to this, I should like to repeat what I said before because I think there is some vast mistake about it. Please do remember that Ulster is not asking for anything. Please remember that Ulster is merely asking to stay as she is, to stay under the Constitution under which she has prospered. Therefore I was assuming Home Rule is going to pass, Assuming that a statesman has before him the idea of a federal Constitution, assuming there is one portion who want to stay in the federal Constitution in a particular way, on what grounds does he reject it? If you have four Parliaments in the United Kingdom there is no reason why you should not have five—none whatsoever—or six or seven. I believe somebody said we had twenty-seven in the Empire. All I can say to the statesman who is going to propose a federal Constitution for this country, who is going to break up the United Kingdom—which we do not want in relation to this matter—it is a fatuous policy to say that in the mapping out of your federal Constitution, "We shall disregard one portion of the community and one portion only," and treat them as if they were citizens who were beneath our contempt and unworthy to be listened to in the views that they put forward as regards the way they ought to be governed.
  I do not want to say one word by way of threat. That is not what I want. I am using no threat of any kind whatsoever. I shall assume, for the purpose of my argument, that you coerce Ulster. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) says, "Are you going to fight the Navy and the Army?" That is an absurd suggestion. I shall assume that the Navy and the Army are going to put Ulster down. What then? Do you think that people with this burning passion in relation to the Government under which they are to live will be good citizens? Do you really think that the Ulster Scot is the kind of man you can trample underfoot? You have made very little effort certainly by your arguments here—I do not know what took place elsewhere; I do not know
  1074
  whether this matter has been considered; I dare say it has—you have made very little effort and very little progress, so far as any solution of the question is possible, in the present condition and frame of mind shown by the announcement by the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary on the last occasion when this was before the House. Let me examine for the moment the argument which has been put forward. The Chief Secretary said, "After all, the people of Ireland, Catholics and Protestants, are not such bad friends as you might imagine." I quite agree with him. I should be sorry if they were. I hope they will be greater friends; if you will only let them alone they would be. But there are deep-rooted historical questions, traditions, ideas, and race, too, which you cannot get rid of by an Act of Parliament, but which you can aggravate by an Act of Parliament. The Chief Secretary says there is a great deal of trade between the North and South of Ireland. He says there are bankers in the North who have branch banks in the South; and there are men in the North of Ireland who sell seeds to men in the South. What has that got to do with it? Does he mean to say—this is a hopeful outlook —that if Ulster is allowed to remain with the Imperial Parliament here they would never again be allowed to do business in the South of Ireland? That is not a happy augury for the Irish Parliament you are going to set up. I think he did say that without Ulster Home Rule would be incomplete and ineffective; I do not remember his exact words.
  The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell): Truncated.
  Sir E. CARSON: I agree with him. I believe it would be almost impossible, for many reasons, if you have to go into finance and other matters; but the right hon. Gentleman draws the conclusion that therefore you must force Home Rule upon Ulster. I draw the conclusion, therefore, that you ought not to have Home Rule at all. That is the difference between us; that is what you have to start with; but to draw the conclusion that because for many reasons the South and West of Ireland want the wealth and industry of Ulster to help them on their way that therefore you are to coerce Ulster seems to me one of the most extraordinary propositions that can be conceived. I now come to the Prime Minister, who gave us a very severe lecture on our daring to

  1075
  desert those who, according to us, were placed in peril in other parts of Ireland. We do not want to be lectured by the Prime Minister. We can manage all this for ourselves. The people in Ireland will not in the least misconstrue what we are doing on this occasion, whatever the lectures of the Prime Minister may be. They Know perfectly well that that is all nonsense so far as they are concerned. I do not believe that anything the Prime Minister, or any other Minister, will ever say or do, as he is attempting to do, drive a kind of wedge, as if we were—to use the phrase of the Solicitor-General, who had come straight from the "Titanic" Inquiry—taking to the boats. It will not do us the least harm. They have perfect confidence that we are trying to do what is best for them, and very often, on this kind of Amendment, in very difficult circumstances, I admit. That is what the Prime Minister put forward, that we were deserting the other people in Ireland, and that, instead, we ought to remain in the Irish Parliament and throw in our lot with it, and have the benefit of such power as we might be able to exert in that Parliament.
  The Solicitor-General says you cannot treat Ulster separately, because Ireland is an entity for legislation, and always treated so by this House. He also says it is an entity for one separate Executive Government and he said that is what it is at the present time. Therefore, he adds, you cannot divide it. I cannot follow the conclusion of the hon. and learned Gentleman. The plain answer to that is that it is quite true that we legislate for Ireland as one entity in this House; but it is because you do it by an Imperial Parliament, constituted not merely of Members from Ireland, but of Members in the United Kingdom; and in no other way can you do it. We say the only way you can treat Ireland, having regard to her special conditions, is to treat her as one entity by the Imperial Parliament, and the moment you try to alter that, the idea of governing Ireland with anything like peace falls away. I should like to say a word about this question of our deserting the rest of Ireland. It is said that if we support this Amendment we shall be guilty of desertion. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] Is it desertion? I do not agree. I will tell you why I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. Let me say for myself, and in no egotistical way, that as a Dublin man—the Solicitor-General was very
  1076
  anxious to know my pedigree—I should be the very last, with all my relatives living in the South and West of Ireland, and in Dublin, and in various places, who would for one moment consent to what I believe would be in the slightest degree a desertion of any part of Ireland. The Solicitor-General said that I made a statement in Dublin, and he suggested that Belfast people were brought down there. That is a very unworthy suggestion.
  The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir J. Simon): I did not say that.
  Sir E. CARSON: You did say it. I know the Solicitor-General said, "I do not suggest for a moment there were people brought from Belfast." I think he is far too honest to deny that. But if he did not mean to suggest that, why did he say it? I can assure him that there is no word of truth in the suggestion. I can assure him that I would not lend myself on a matter of this kind to a paltry pretence and pretext of that nature. I addressed 7,000 delegates there from outside Ulster—that was the meeting he referred to—and there I said what I repeat here exactly, that Ulster would never demand, and Ulster has not demanded any separate Parliament; but by remaining under this Imperial Parliament, they take to my mind far the best step for assisting their brethren in the South and West.
  Sir J. SIMON: I was refering to a passage in the right hon. Gentleman's speech in which he, in effect, said to the Unionists of Dublin and the South that, they might be quite certain that the Unionists of the North would take no steps which would separate their interests from those of the Unionists in Dublin and the South.
  Sir E. CARSON: I said this:—
  "Ulster asks for no separate Parliament. She never has in all the long controversy taken that separate course. Ulster asks to remain in the Imperial Parliament, and that she means, if possible, to do—(loud cheers) and you need fear no action of Ulster which would be in the nature of desertion of any of the Southern provinces. If Ulster succeeds Home Rule is dead."
  What I said there is exactly what I am saying now, that Ulster will ask for no separate Parliament, and that she will try and remain in this Parliament, and that that will be the best way of helping the people in the South and West of Ireland, and does anybody doubt it? If you have in Ulster this Imperial Parliament and the

  1077
  Imperial Executive, do you not think that the people in the South and West of Ireland would be in a very different position from sending a few representatives from Ulster into a Parliament where their voice would hardly ever be heard, and certainly never could be made practical? I know that the right hon. Gentleman believes, and I am sure he believes, that when this Bill is passed and when the controversy is out of the way, that Ulster will get a fair share in the government of Ireland. I am sure he believes that, and I am not at all saying it is unnatural. He is an Englishman, and he believes credulous stories as they are told from one day to the other. It is said one day that we have an undying hatred for England. I suppose he will believe that, and then he is told by the same Gentleman the next day that we are burning with love for the British Empire, and I suppose he believes that, too.
  The PRIME MINISTER: Does the right hon. Gentleman think credulity a peculiar quality of Englishmen?
  Sir E. CARSON: In politics sometimes. Let us look at what has happened, and let me give an instance to show you those Ulster people are not unreasonable, as is tried to be represented. When the county councils came along somebody conceived the idea, and I think a very good idea, of having a council of the county councils for the purpose of suggesting mutual improvement in local government in Ireland. It was, I think, an excellent suggestion. It was mainly, of course, composed of Nationalists, and their idea was to meet together and make suggestions from one to the other as to how they could best improve the county government of the country, which was, I think, a very sane and very good idea. How has it turned out? They invited the Ulster people in. The Ulster people knew their men. They said, "while we do not very much believe that that is the real object we will give you a trial, and will you keep politics out of it, and let all of us apply ourselves purely to the administration of our counties, and get up a better system." They went in on the strict undertaking that that was to be the constitution of the council. They were not very long there before they found what they had been brought in for—to try and have it appear they were lending themselves to what is called the helping of the national idea, and they had some years ago to retire, and leave the council of the county councils to themselves. Where have we, even in the
  1078
  last twenty years since this Home Rule question has been before the country, any single instance in the whole conduct of the majority in Ireland of encouragement to believe that we can expect fair play at their hands. Not one in twenty years.
  There has been an attempt, and I admit it freely and frankly, by some few of the Irish Members, led, I believe, by the hon. Member for Cork. See how it is laughed at. The hon. Member for Cork is a Horns Ruler. I differ from him just as much as I differ from any other, but let me say that movement was a movement of conciliation. It ended, or, at least, it commenced to a large extent in the Land Act that was passed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Wyndham). The hon. Member for Cork, seeing the benefits of that Act as they resulted to Ireland, had rigidly adhered to it, and to every word and every promise he made at that time, and largely because of that he is now driven outside the Irish party. Then the hon. Gentleman and some others proceeded to what they called trying to reconcile Ulster and the Protestants from Ulster, and Ireland generally, and made speeches which, if they had been made by the majority of them for the last twenty years might, I admit, possibly have had some effect on some of the Unionists in Ireland. Their idea was certainly a worthy idea, nobody can deny that, of bringing about reconciliation and better feeling, and the moment they do that they are denounced, and they are boycotted, and they are persecuted, and they can hardly hold an election in Ireland. The hon. Member—
  The CHAIRMAN: I am very reluctant to interfere with the right hon. Gentleman. All the earlier part of his argument was, I think, distinctly relevant to the Amendment, but I wish to point out that, although this Amendment undoubtedly raises very large and broad questions, it is to be considered in relation to the fact of this Bill having been read a second time. Therefore to that extent the discussion is narrower than if we were on the Second Reading of the Bill.
  Sir E. CARSON: I can only say with great respect that I am surprised if I am not entitled to show why these counties in Ulster cannot trust the majority, and give that as a reason why they should be excluded from the Bill. I have said nearly all I have to say upon this subject. I only wish that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for one of the Divisions of

  1079
  Cork would get up and tell the House something about the Louth Election. I have put the case as well as I could before the Committee. I have put it without trying to introduce any unnecessary heat into the argument; but you need not assume because I put it in that way that I do not feel as deeply as a man can feel on this subject, because I am convinced of it not by going amongst the landlords, but by going amongst the only real democracy that exists in Ireland, the working men there, who are the men I always insist upon seeing when I go over there, because they after all will bear the brunt of this business, and no step will be ever taken by Ulster without their fullest concurrence. It is because I know what their feelings are and what they are talking and feeling in their workshops and in the. evening in their homes; it is for that reason I look upon this case as one of such serious import that I do not think any consideration this House can give to it is in the least too much even having regard to the straitened circumstances of time under which we have to conduct it.
  Mr. JOHN REDMOND: I shall endeavour in the remarks that I have to make to imitate the moderation and calmness with which the right hon. Gentleman has spoken, and which I freely acknowledge, and as he has received a patient and respectful hearing for his view of the case, I feel sure that our view of the case will be equally received. On Tuesday last the late Leader of the Opposition complained of the silence of Irish Members on these benches on the question of this Amendment, and he called for an explanation from us as to our position on this question of the separate treatment of Ulster. I remained silent on Tuesday last because I felt I was entitled to know before I spoke the attitude of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) and his Friends, and until the speech which he has delivered this afternoon was made I honestly did not know what his attitude was going to be. We all remember that in his speech in Belfast he called, as we thought, for separate treatment for Ulster, and we know that the very moment he made that declaration that the idea of separate treatment for Ulster was loudly denounced by the organ of opinion of the Unionists of the South and West of Ireland. Instantly, the moment he made that speech, the next day, the "Irish
  1080
  Times," which is the organ—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Is the "Irish Times" not the organ of the Unionists of the South and West of Ireland? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I must say that is news to me, and I think will be rather startling reading for the manager and conductors of that journal. It certainly poses as the representative of the Unionists in the South and West of Ireland, and is so generally regarded in the South and West of Ireland. It came out and denounced the idea of the separate treatment of Ulster, and when the right hon. Gentleman says that there is no danger of the Unionists in the South and West of Ireland misunderstanding his present attitude, I would like to tell the Committee that the "Irish Times," in an article published yesterday, with reference to this very Debate, declared that the suggestion in this Amendment of separate treatment for Ulster or for any part of Ulster was, and these are the words:—
  "A trap designed to secure an admission that the Northern Unionists were willing to abandon the Unionists in the rest of Ireland to their fate."
  5.0 P.M.
  Then, subsequently to the denunciation in the name of the Unionists of the South and West of Ireland to the idea of separate treatment for any part of Ulster, the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke, as has been said, in Dublin and there, as we understood, he repudiated the idea of the separate treatment for Ulster. This afternoon he says he is going to vote for it; but he has made, I am bound to say, his position perfectly clear. He has been perfectly candid. He has not said he is going to vote for separate treatment for a portion of Ulster for the purpose of improving this Bill, or as a compromise on which this matter could be settled, because he has told us that even if this. Amendment were carried the opposition of himself and his party to the Home Rule Bill would be as vehement as ever. I call the attention of the Committee to this fact. This Amendment has not been moved by one of the representatives of any of the four counties concerned, and the whole House knows what capable men they are. It has not been moved by any Member from Ulster; it has not been moved by any Ulster man at all; it has not been moved even by a Member of the Unionist party. It is, I believe, a fact that a similar Amendment which stood the other day on the Notice Paper in the name of a Unionist Member has mysteriously disappeared from the Paper. Under these circumstances I think the Committee generally

  1081
  will say that I was entitled to know, before I rose to speak upon this matter, did the Unionist party, and especially the Ulster Unionist party, put this forward as their demand for a settlement of this question, or did they not? It is now evident, of course, that they do not, and that they do not treat it as any approach to a settlement of the question. I assert that there is at this moment no single section of Unionist opinion in Ireland in favour of the Amendment. Certainly it is not supported by the Unionists from the South and West, and, as I have said, it was not moved by any representative of Ulster, or even by a Unionist Member at all.
  I should like to say a word with respect to one or two of my Friends on the other side of the House, who, before this situation had developed as it has done, expressed some sympathy with this Amendment. I could quite understand some Friends of ours on the other side of the House giving very serious and anxious consideration to this proposal if it were put forward as the price to be paid for a settlement of this question; that is to say, If the Ulster Unionist Members declared that if this Amendment were carried they would accept the Bill. Even then, I am bound to say, it would not have received the approval or sanction of my colleagues or myself. I will develop our position with perfect candour if the Committee will kindly bear with me. I say that if it had been put before the Committee in that way and upon those grounds, I could understand some genuine Home Rulers on the other side of the House, friends of Ireland, giving their serious consideration to it. But it is now entirely disavowed and repudiated as part of a settlement by the Ulster Members. It is put entirely on one side as a means of bringing about a compromise, and it is supported frankly as a wrecking Amendment. On Tuesday the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Hayes Fisher) frankly declared that he only voted for this Amendment because he knew that if it was carried it would kill the Bill; and unless I misunderstand the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson), he also declared that if Ulster were separated from the rest of Ireland, Home Rule became impossible. Therefore I say that this Amendment stands, and is put before the Committee, not as an effort towards the settlement of this question, but frankly and brutally as a wrecking Amendment. I appeal to any genuine friends of Home Rule in Ireland how, in
  1082
  these circumstances, they can possibly give a vote in favour of the Amendment? No intelligent man in any part of the House can possibly support this Amendment except upon the ground that it is a wrecking Amendment.
  Consider for a moment what this Amendment is. It proposes to exempt from the operation of the Home Rule Bill four Ulster counties out of the nine which comprise the province, namely, Antrim, Down, Derry, and Armagh. Mark you, it does not propose to exempt Ulster. That would be too absurd, because, as is well known, in Ulster, taking the whole province, the population is very evenly balanced indeed, even between Catholic and Protestant, and if allowance were made, as I think it ought to be, for at any rate a margin of Protestant Home Rulers, you would have the result that a majority of the people of Ulster were in favour of Home Rule. The Unionists in Ulster at present have a majority of only one in the representation of the province. That is only a temporary majority. We have had a majority in the province of Ulster more than once, and may have again any day in the future. Therefore hon. Gentlemen abstain from the rank absurdity of proposing to exempt Ulster as a whole. Then they go on and say they will exempt four counties, "and," said the ex-Leader of the Opposition, "the ground on which we are justified in exempting those four counties is that they contain a population homogenous, determined, and united in their political and religious convictions, and cut off from the rest of Ireland." Let me examine that statement for a moment. Anything more grossly and ludicrously inaccurate was never said. The right hon. Gentleman's argument was that so homogenous, so united in their convictions, religious and political, were these four counties, and so cut off from the rest of Ireland, that they were as different from the rest of Ireland as the rest of Ireland is from Great Britain. I utterly deny this statement. Even at the present moment, as things stand, in these four counties the Nationalists hold the following seats, namely, South Down, South Armagh, Newry, and West Belfast; and we lost the seat in South Derry only by a handful of votes. We have often held the seat before, and probably in elections to come will hold it again. Take, further, the seats of South Belfast, South Derry, East Down, and North Antrim. They are all seats which in the past have been won by

  1083
  either Home Rulers or Labour men. In the face of these facts to say that these four counties form a homogeneous community, separated from the rest of Ireland and opposed to Home Rule, is absurd.
  Let me deal with the four counties and see whether by a further test they can be said to be homogeneous in their religious, racial, or political ideas. Take, first of all, the consideration of these counties, excluding the cities of Belfast and Derry. I will deal with those in a moment. We have in Ireland a religious census, so that we are able to quote exact figures. We have in these four counties a population consisting of 690,000 Catholics and 888,000 Protestants—a large majority of Protestants, I admit, but still is it such a large majority as entitles you to say that these four counties are the solid mass of a million men of which the late Leader of the Opposition spoke, united in their convictions—
  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman say that there are 690,000 Catholics in these four counties? That is the number for the whole of Ulster. The 1911 Census, on page 6 of the Preliminary Report, showed 690,000 Roman Catholics for the whole province of Ulster.
  Mr. J. REDMOND: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for correcting me. I was given by inadvertence the figures for the whole of Ulster. The figures I have had supplied to me, however, are wrong. I believe the actual figures are that out of a population of a little over a million in these four counties 315,000 are Catholics. I make the hon. Gentleman and his Friends a present of their satisfaction at having tripped me up in reading out figures which were supplied to me upon a wrong basis. But I make the same argument. You cannot speak of these four counties as being a unit when even on matters of religion there is a minority so large as 315,000 Catholics against less than 700,000 Protestants. But this is not a mere sectarian matter. I assert here again now, as I asserted some time ago, that there is amongst the Protestants in these counties a large minority of men in favour of Home Rule for Ireland. That is capable of proof, and I will endeavour to prove it. Take some of the elections which have recently been held in these four counties. In the election of December, 1910, in North Antrim, there was a contest between Mr.
  1084
  Macafee, who was a Liberal Home Ruler—
  Mr. MOORE: He denied that he was a Home Ruler.
  Mr. J. REDMOND: He certainly stood as a Home Ruler. He stood against the official Tory candidate, and was denounced as a Home Ruler by him. In addition to that, I am told that at the recent Home Rule meeting in Dublin he was one of the speakers.
  Mr. MOORE: He has "ratted" since,
  Mr. J. REDMOND: In that election, where on one side there was an official Tory candidate and on the other a Liberal Home Ruler, although according to the official Census the Catholics in the population are only 24 per cent., the Liberal Home Ruler polled 45 per cent. of the electors who voted. Where did the other 21 per cent. come from? Manifestly they must have come from the Protestant population. Take the constituencies of West Down and Mid-Antrim. The Liberal candidates in those constituencies were denounced by the Tory candidates as Home Rulers, as sheep in wolves' clothing, and as Russellites—worse than all.
  Mr. MOORE: And they denied that they were Home Rulers.
  Mr. J. REDMOND: The hon. and learned Gentleman will have a full opportunity of replying presently. What was the result? In West Down the Catholics are only 17 per cent. of the whole population, and the candidate who stood against the anti-Home Ruler polled 40 per cent. of the votes cast. Where in that case did the remaining 23 per cent. of votes come from? They must have come from the Protestant population. In Mid-Antrim in the year 1906 Captain Verschoyle stood avowedly as a Home Ruler, and in that constituency the Catholics are only 22 per cent. of the population. Captain Verschoyle polled 44 per cent. of the votes cast. The balance of 22 per cent. manifestly must have come from the Protestant population. Do not let hon. Members imagine that I am so foolish as to try and push this argument too far. I do not want to do so at all. Of course we are in a minority, a considerable minority, in these four counties. But when you speak of a great body of a million there, homogeneous in race, in religion, and in political conviction, then surely I am entitled to point out as an answer, in the first

  1085
  instance, that there is a large Catholic minority in these counties, and, secondly, taking as a test these electoral returns, there must be a considerable margin of Protestants in those counties who are also in favour of Home Rule.
  Let me come to Belfast. It would, I think on this showing, be absurd to say that these four counties are a separate entity. The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just spoken (Sir E. Carson) asked: "Could you have passed your Commonwealth Bill for Australia if one of the Australian Colonies had objected?" I do not suppose you could. These Australian Colonies were separate entities. Will anyone say that four counties in Ireland are a separate entity—four counties made up in the way I have described? When you were passing the Commonwealth Bill in Australia if you had found, say, in the Colony of New South Wales one small section of the population, a very small minority as compared with the whole, had objected, of course your Commonwealth Bill would have gone through all the same. But that argument cannot hold good against Ireland, unless indeed you are prepared to say that these four counties in themselves form a separate nationality. If you want to be logical in exemption you ought to exempt simply Belfast, and if you start in exempting Belfast what are you going to do about the 100,000 Nationalists in Belfast, and about the Protestants who returned my hon. Friend for West Belfast? Are they to have separate treatment inside Belfast? Why, that question, I submit, reduces the whole argument to an absurdity. I repeat, therefore, that no intelligent man can support this Amendment except upon the theory that it is a wrecking Amendment, designed to destroy the Bill. I pass from that. I desire to explain quite frankly what my view is on this question. I found myself on far broader and more solid ground than this. We put forward our claim for Home Rule for Ireland as a national demand. That is its essence. The national demand, the national spirit, has been the soul of the movement ever since the Union was carried. We claim that Ireland is a nation, made up, no doubt, by the intermixing of many races; a nation whose rights and liberties have no doubt often been invaded—
  Lord HUGH CECIL: A nation like Sweden and Norway?
  Mr. J. REDMOND: If I am to carry out the promise with which I commenced I
  1086
  must absolutely, however rude it may seem, ignore the Noble Lord. We say that Ireland is a nation, whose rights and liberties have no doubt often been invaded, but a nation, a national unit to-day, just as much as is England, or Scotland or Wales! We are not dealing with the case of a few counties of Britain that happen to be separated from this island by a few miles of water. We are putting our case forward as a case of a nation, and it is on that ground that our claim rests, and from that claim it will never be divorced. In a remarkable book which is published this week, under the title of "The New Irish. Constitution "—which I hope every Member, whatever his views, will read—may be found the words which really put more tersely and far more eloquently than I can the point which I wish to put before the House. The writer says:—
  "The Unionist cause at its best was that Irish nationalism was a passing and a superficial sentiment. At its core were certain real grievances; it was swollen into a mass of imposing appearances, but of loose and flabby texture. The plan was to remove the grievances with one hand, while with the other every ebullition of sentiment into unruly speech or action was steadily repressed. Had the plan succeeded, it would have shown that Irish nationality was an illusion, or at best a thin and unsubstantial product of a passing historical phase. In so far as it has failed it has shown that Irish nationality is a reality, deep rooted in the past, and to be reckoned with permanently in the future. If the demand for autonomy remains clear and persistent, through evil report and good report, through; adversity and prosperity, in days of disorder when despair has reigned, and in law-abiding times rendered calm by hope, there is the proof that nationality is a vital principle, and a permanent force with which liberty must make its account."
  The writer goes on to point out that—
  "Most modern nations, our own conspicuously—"
  speaking of England—
  "are blends of many races. …"
  He goes on—
  "When two or more races are intermixed, there is no means of endowing them with independent Governments. The same writ must run over the whole territory. Hence there are three possibilities. One is that one race should hold the reins of power, as generally happens when white and black live together. Another is that the country should be governed from without, and this will generally mean that the administration leans on one of the races within, and makes of it an 'ascendancy' caste."
  Exactly what has happened in Ireland—
  "The third' is that the two races should seek to live together and govern themselves with mutual toleration. This is the experiment which has succeeded in Canada, and is succeeding, so far as the white races are concerned, in South Africa, and which is to be tried in Ireland."
  That is our ambition. This idea of two nations in Ireland is to us revolting and hateful. The idea of our agreeing to the partition of our nation is unthinkable. We want the union in Ireland of all creeds, of all classes, of all races, and we would

  1087
  resist most violently as far as it is within our power to do so—[An HON. MEMBER: "Oh!"]—Yes, so far as we have the power to do so—the setting up of permanent dividing lines between one creed and another and one race and another. Men will say that the dream of a union complete and lasting between all creeds and classes in Ireland will never be realised. It is our hope, our ambition, our belief, that it will be. To attempt to cut off the Protestants under the two-nation theory from the national traditions and aspiraions of the Irish race sounds to many of us something like sacrilege. Yes, many of the most revered of our national saints and martyrs in the national struggle have been Protestants. Many of the greatest and most honoured leaders of the Irish race in their struggles, both on the field and in the constitutional region, have been Protestants. Grattan's Parliament, which possesses to-day the enthusiastic and affectionate remembrance of the Irish people, was a Parliament in which no Catholic could sit; for election to it no Catholic was allowed to vote. I say to you here that most of the Catholics of Ireland would prefer to-morrow to take back Grattan's Parliament with all those disqualifications than to continue to be governed under the Union or consent to the partition of the Irish nation.
  Why, let me ask before I sit down, is Ireland to be the only country in the whole world where religious animosity is to permanently divide the people? We demand that under Home Rule we in Ireland shall be given the same chance as was given to the Catholics and Protestants in Canada; to the Boers and Britains in South Africa; the same chance to sit down side by side and to endeavour to administer jointly "the affairs of our common country so that we may be able to bury the memories of the past and open a new chapter of unity. That is our ambition—at any rate that is the ambition which we will never surrender. I am faced with this proposition: We are told that in any case a section of the population of Ulster will not agree, and if we object to the idea of separate treatment for Ulster, what, we are asked, is our alternative? I say that our alternative is to trust the healing process of time and experience. Precisely this same section in Ireland spoke in precisely the same way about Catholic Emancipation. They spoke in precisely the same way about Disestablishment. They believed—quite
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  honestly; I am not questioning the honesty of their statement at all—they believed that Catholic Emancipation meant ruin, confiscation, and oppression for them. They said they would resist. They said the same about Disestablishment. They did not resist. Why?
  Because they found these measures did not mean oppression, confiscation, or wrong. The same thing will follow here. If the Irish Parliament were mad enough to inaugurate a policy of wrong-doing, of oppression, or of tyranny against any section in Ulster, that section would resist, and ought to resist, and they would have my hearty sympathy in that resistance. But if they find that they have got nothing to resist, if they find that no oppression is done to them, whom would their army fight? That is my alternative. Trust the people of Ireland, as the people of all colours, of all races, and of all creeds have been trusted elsewhere in your Empire, and you will most undoubtedly find as a result what has happened everywhere else will happen in Ireland: that men will come together; they will forget the past; they will sit down at the same table, and endeavour to do all they can for the welfare and freedom of their common country. Let me read to the House—and this is my last observation—what Mr. Parnell said about this subject in 1886. It was alluded to by the Chief Secretary the other day, but the right hon. Gentleman did not read Mr. Parnell's words. They are worth reading. For my part I found myself upon them, and the Irish Nationalist party today stands in this matter precisely where Parnell stood. He said, on a similar proposal for separate treatment for Ulster:—
  "No. Sir, we cannot give up a single Irishman. We want the energy, the patriotism, the talents, and the work of every Irishman to ensure that this great experiment shall be a successful one. The best system of government for a country I believe to be one which requires that that government should be the resultant of all the forces within the country. We cannot give away to a second Legislature the talents and the influence of any portion or section of the Irish people. The class of Protestants will form a most valuable element in the Irish Legislature of the future, constituting, as they will be, a strong minority, and exercising through the First Order a moderating influence in making the laws. We have heard of the dangers that will result from an untried and unpractised Legislature being established in Ireland. Now I regard variety as vitally necessary for the success of this trial. I want, Sir, all creeds and all classes in Ireland. We cannot consent to look on a single Irishman as not belonging to us. And, however much we recognise the great abilities in the industry of the Irish Protestants—and we recognise them freely and fully—we cannot admit that there is a single one of them too good to take part in the Dublin Parliament. We do not blame the small portion of the Protestants of Ireland who feel any real fear. I admit, Sir. that there is a small proportion a of them who do feel this fear. We do not blame them; we hare

  1089
  been doing our best to allay that fear, and we shall continue to do so; and finally, when this Bill becomes an Act, we shall not cease from the work of conciliating the fears of this small section of Irishmen. No, Sir. theirs is not the shame and disgrace of this fear. That shame and disgrace belong to right hon. Gentlemen and Noble Lords of English political parties who, for selfish interests, have sought to rekindle the embers— the almost expiring embers—of religious bigotry."
  That is our position, expressed in weightier words than I could use upon this Amendment. We say this Amendment is absurd; we say it is illogical and unworkable; that it is not asked for by any section of Unionists in Ireland. We say it can only be supported by intelligent men as a wrecking Amendment. Above all, we oppose it, because it would destroy for ever our most cherished ambition, namely, to see the Irish nation in the near future made up of every race and every creed and every class working unitedly for the well-being and freedom of the Irish race and doing so through the instrumentality of a native Government which, in the words of Thomas Davis,
  "Shall rule by the right and might of all,
  Yet yield to the arrogance of none."
  Mr. MOORE: After the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down, it is plain that under no circumstances would he accept an Amendment of this kind. We start with this, that under no terms would the Nationalist party accept an Amendment of this kind, and it is only beating the air for the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford to accuse us of supporting this because it is a wrecking Amendment. What difference is it to him if he is opposed to it if certain hon. Members in this House might be disposed to regard it as an Amendment which might or might not wreck this most infamous Bill? I do not support it because it is a wrecking Amendment, but because I am an Ulster man. I had no part in the engineering of this Amendment which was brought forward by a Radical Member on the other side. I shall put as shortly as I can why I support this Amendment. I think it is an Amendment which is deficient. I do not think it goes far enough; but personally I would not have the least hesitation in "voting for the Amendment if it was to exclude the "whole of Ulster. But if an Amendment were only to take Tory Ireland out of this scheme, which I believe is largely Nationalist, or at any rate, if it were only to take Rathlin Island out of the control of the Dublin Parliament, although I would think such an Amendment lamentably insuffi-
  1090
  cient, yet from my knowledge of the injustice, enforced tyranny, and persecution that would await the Unionists under a Dublin Parliament, I should probably consider it my duty as an Ulster man to accept even that modicum of relief for a small proportion of my co-religionists and fellow-citizens. And therefore I say that, maimed and halting though this Amendment is, I as an Ulster man support it, because it will give relief to the inhabitants of four counties and possibly to nine counties.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman dealt in very lofty language with the two-nation theory. The same theory was dealt with by the learned Solicitor-General the night before last. It is perfectly easy to say there are not two nations, but that depends upon what you mean by the expression "nation." It is very easy to say such and such a people are a nation if they have a definite and defined geographical boundary, but there are other tests of nations. A very good test of a nation in Ireland is the number of people who, if the worst come to the worst, are willing to fight for their liberty and their religion. I think that is a pretty good test of a nation, and I am pretty well satisfied that in this matter—I am not going into the figures of the four counties—but in the province of Ulster you will find a very large proportion of able-bodied men, fully one million Protestants, prepared to fight for their liberty. That is good enough, whether you think them a nation or not. There are several tests of a nation. First, there is the test of religious differences. I am not going to lay stress upon that, but it generally makes a great difference between people. I know there are countries where you find different religions combined in one nation. Such is the case in Switzerland, where you have Catholic cantons and Protestant cantons. But religious difference is an element, and this one million of the population of Ulster, whom we represent, is divided from those whom the hon. Member for Waterford and his followers represent, by religious differences. But more than that, they are divided by historical distinctions and by the country of their origin.
  What is their history? Practically every man of them—perhaps four hundred years ago in the case of. Armagh and Tyrone, and three hundred years ago in the case of Antrim and Down—came from Scotland or England. Some Huguenot families came from France, but I am talking of the larger immigration. It cannot be said that when they landed they were

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  Irish. You will find the Scotch dialect still spoken in the counties of Antrim and Down, and the Scotch traditions preserved there. And you will find the purest English spoken in Antrim and Armagh. Their ideals are the ideals of the whole British nation. They are not Irish in that sense, and England and Scotland form part of their ideals. Their ideals are Imperial ideals. Again and again we have been abused by hon. Members on the Nationalist Benches below the Gangway and described as West Britons. We are West Britons. It is a term of opprobrium used against us by them, but we regard the term Briton as the emblem of liberty. We have prospered under it, and we will take nothing less. And instead of the sentimental humbug about Ireland's well-being and other pretexts that prevail in the South and West of Ireland, we maintain our own ideals, because we are connected with Britain by ties of blood and religion and history; and we object to be swallowed up in the claim that the hon. and learned Gentleman makes, that we should come into his fold because we live in Ireland. Ever since we came there he and his predecessors have been doing their best to turn us out.
  Three times in history the Nationalist party got the upper hand against us and we, the descendants of these settlers—the descendants of men who had to work their farms much in the same way as did the people in Rhodesia, with the spade in one hand and the rifle in the other to protect themselves against the forbears of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, who swooped down from the mountains and tried to carry off their women and children —have still to guard ourselves against them to-day. In 1641 these people rose up and massacred the Protestants of the country. Again, when King James came to the throne, they passed a Bill and attainted 3,000 Protestant owners of land in Ireland. If they left the country their property was taken from them, and if they did not attend by a given day their property was taken away, and if they did attend their property was taken away also. And on the last occasion, and I hope it will be the last, when the Nationalist party got control of the forces in Ireland, it was at: the rebellion in Wexford, and we of the North of Ireland have not forgotten how our coreligionists were turned into the barns of Scullabogue and massacred. These things make all the difference. The
  1092
  memory of them is there, and rankles and leaves its trace in our time and never will be removed, and we never will be shaken in our determination not to allow the direct political descendants of these same people to pursue that same policy against us, the descendants of these settlers.
  When I hear all these professions of toleration and anxiety to get hold of us, and what a nice happy country Ireland is going to be if we only allow the Nationalists full control, and how foolish the Protestants are not to come in, I always remember this one thing: We are the people who live on the spot. We were bred in the country, and we have been living cheek by jowl with these people all our lives, and surely we ought to know them, and we do know them, and you will not get a Protestant community in any part of Ireland to commit themselves to the tender mercy of the Roman Catholic Nationalist majority if they can possibly help it. And is it to be expected that we are such fools as to take, at anything more than its face value, all the talk about this virtue, about the good times we are to have if we only commit ourselves to them? Their ideals are very different from ours. I have heard Ulster and Belfast and these four counties mentioned in the Amendment abused again and again. There is one thing the Chief Secretary will bear me out in reluctantly, and it is this Intimidation or cattle-driving or moonlighting or boycotting does not exist in these four counties. You do not have people's lives made a misery. You do not have the midnight marauder or the assassin. These are not our ideals in the northern nation. I repudiate altogether the claim put forward by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford in this matter. Ours are the ideals of peaceful persuasion. There, again I draw a distinction between the inhabitants of those four counties and the rest of Ireland, and when I hear how anxious the Nationalist party are to show how well they can treat us, I only need to state that it is not so long to go back to the time of the passing of the Local Government Act. That measure was accompanied with exactly the same professions from the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, who said they would welcome the co-operation of Irish Protestants. I am not so sure that he did not quote from a speech by Mr. Parnell, in which he said they would welcome the co-operation of Protestants

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  in the local affairs of Ireland—a very proper thing considering that they pay a large proportion of the rates. What happened in that case? Only eighteen Protestants are allowed on the councils in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught out of over 600. This toleration has admitted sixteen Protestant representatives for three-quarters of Ireland. Can we be blamed for not trusting these people? This kind of thing is going on around us and we see it every day. What do we say is the alternative? Simply to leave us alone. I do not believe in these beautiful sentiments about not having a complete Ireland or leaving Ireland out. They sound very well for consumption in certain quarters, but the real reason why the hon. and learned Member for Waterford will not leave these four counties and Belfast out is that if he did so he would have nobody to tax. Of the £3,000.000 which is Ireland's contribution from Customs and Revenue Taxes. £2,250,000 comes from Belfast.
  Mr. LOUGH: Where does Belfast get that £2,250,000?
  Mr. MOORE: The point is that they get it. there, and if we hold fast hon. Members cannot collect it there, and they never will collect it there, which is a small piece of further information. That is where you have almost the whole artisan element of the entire country. Take the metropolis of Ireland. There is one large industry there owned by Messrs. Guinness. There is also a large biscuit business owned by Messrs. Jacobs. The latter firm are so convinced of the security that will be given to them in the future under a Dublin Parliament that they have taken a plot of ten acres of land in Liverpool.
  Mr. LOUGH: What about whisky?
  Mr. MOORE: I am not so much acquainted with the whisky trade, but it is a trade which does not employ a very large number of hands, and whisky is only made in certain months of the year. The fact is that you have almost the whole of the manufactures of the country, including those engaged in the tobacco factories and the spinning, linen and shipbuilding industries, all centred in Belfast. That is the reason why the Nationalist party will not take this Amendment. That is the reason the Government will not accept it, because the Nationalist party are their masters. I do not think any Member of the Government or any fair-minded man would deny
  1094
  the justice of the Ulster position as put forward in this Amendment. If a man in Ulster wishes the prosperity to continue which feeds the mouths in the humblest homes just as well as supporting the employer, he knows that that prosperity cannot continue unless you have security. If you have not security no man will invest his money in any industrial business. You can get the English or the Ulster investor to take the risk of investing his capital under the security of British law at the present time, as we have had it for the last 100 years, but under the problematical security offered by this Bill, under which there will be cattle-driving and moonlighting, the capitalist will button up his trousers pockets. This change will strike every class of the community, because it will cripple industrial enterprise. It will hit the masters and hit the employers, because it will kill credit, and trade cannot prosper without credit. For these reasons I think it is our duty to support this Amendment, and I associate myself with every word of the eloquent speech, which so admirably met the situation, made by the senior Member for Dublin University.
  We have been told that there are Nationalist minorities in Ulster. Of course there are, but there are also Protestant minorities in those parts of Ireland which you are going to hand over to hon. Members below the Gangway. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford has been talking about Protestant Home Rulers, and he said there should be an allowance made for that fact in counting heads. All I can say is that he was singularly unfortunate in all the candidates he named as opposing Unionist candidates at the various elections, because every one of those gentlemen declared that of all things in the world they were not in favour of Home Rule. I state that without fear of contradiction. You are going to give Home Rule to Dublin, and there you have 46,000 Protestants, and the other day a Nationalist alderman in Dublin said that the Protestants there paid more that half the rates. Now there are 95,000 Nationalists in Belfast, but I do not think they pay 5 per cent. of the rates, and we shall have to take them just as the Dublin Parliament will have to take those 46,000 Protestants, and I think will be a much more profitable investment for the Dublin Parliament. All through Ireland you will find Protestant communities and Roman Catholic communities, whether you

  1095
  like it or not. I do not attach very much importance to the fact that here and there you find there is a Roman Catholic majority. I am not saying this in any sense of bigotry, and I will explain why.
  Go to an ordinary border Ulster constituency where you have one-third of the inhabitants Protestants and two-thirds Roman Catholics, and what do you find? You find that the bulk of the Roman Catholics are the descendants of the old original Irish families living on the mountain side on small three or five-acre farms; but if you go into the towns you will find that the bulk of the mercantile and commercial businesses in those towns are run by Protestants. It may be that upon election days they come down from the mountains and outvote the Protestants, but for actual purposes the Protestant minority is enough to give the place a claim to have those people included in any Protestant community which is to be set up. Is not a better way of solving this problem to leave those people outside who desire to stay outside, and who do not wish to run any risk? Surely it is much more statesmanlike to leave these people out instead of forcing upon them a change which they detest and which they have determined that they will resist, come what may. They will resist by every means in their power. In this way you will never make Ireland peaceable and happy, in spite of all the eloquence of the lion. Member for Waterford, if your new Constitution is to be a baptism of blood at the start. I hope we shall not be driven to extremes. We are not afraid of hon. Members below the Gangway; we should not have been in the country if we were, for they would have hounded us out years ago. If you drive us to this logical conclusion, if this House by passing this measure sells us into slavery and then you proceed to fetter us with the aid of a military blacksmith placing fetters round our necks. You cannot do that, regrettable as it may be, without the results which follow from the resistance of a free people, who come from the same stock as ourselves, and the day you do that will be an evil day for Ireland.
  Mr. LOUGH: I always listen to the speeches of the hon. and learned Member opposite with great interest, because they are always so outspoken and blunt, and as a rule he generally throws a great deal of light upon the situation with which he
  1096
  deals. The hon. Member for North Armagh is the first hon. Member representing any of the four counties we are dealing with whom we have had the pleasure of listening to, and for this reason we ought to pay careful attention to what he has said. He treats the suggestions put forward from this side of the House with the utmost contempt, and he made it perfectly clear that he was only supporting this proposal in order to embarrass the Government and possibly to destroy the Bill.
  Mr. MOORE: I said that I looked upon it as a danger for any Ulster man to come under the government of the Dublin Parliament, and that is the reason why I shall vote for an Amendment to leave Ulster out.
  Mr. LOUGH: No one knows Ireland better than the hon. Gentleman himself, but when he makes a speech of the kind he has just delivered he generally makes statements so far from the truth that instead of being of use to hon. Members he would misguide anybody who took him seriously. The hon. and learned Member said that not 5 per cent. of the rates of Belfast were paid by Catholics. I have not the figures, but that is a perfectly unjust accusation to make against the inhabitants of that city. The hon. and learned Member spoke of the proportion of Customs and Excise taxes paid by Belfast. Will he deny that the largest proportion of those taxes is paid by Catholics. The greatest contribution to this vast sum is paid by one great Catholic firm in Belfast.
  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: Who are they?
  Mr. LOUGH: Gallagher's.
  Mr. MOORE: Mr. Gallagher is a Protestant, and he is a member of my church.
  6.0 P.M.
  Mr. LOUGH: I am very pleased to hear it. At any rate, I know it is a good old Catholic name, and the burden of my speech is going to be that this question of religion makes no difference whatever, and you cannot draw a religious line. If that illustration of mine has failed, I am pretty sure I could get others in Belfast. I know of some, but I had better not mention names. Hon. Members opposite will acknowledge when you are replying to an argument without previous preparation you may easily make a slip of that kind. I want to

  1097
  take another example of the way in which he was unjust. He spoke of the industries in Dublin, and said there were only two or three. I think that was very unjust to Dublin. There are many small growing industries there, and there is one great one. There is the largest cattle market in the United Kingdom in Dublin. There are many other industries in Dublin which he ignores when it suits him, but, supposing the industries had died down in Dublin, what has caused it? This Union which this Bill is aimed at correcting has destroyed many industries which existed in Dublin long ago and which would be a credit to any country. I do think hon. Members, and especially hon. Members on this side of the House, ought to study the words of this Amendment before they give their votes in favour of it, or indeed before they give it any support. The wording is particularly crude. It deals with these four counties and simply says, "They shall be excluded from the Bill." Supposing they are excluded, what is to become of them? No one has dealt with that question except one hon. Member on this side of the House, who said they would probably send Members to the Scotch Parliament when it was established in Edinburgh.
  Mr. PIRIE: I suggested they should have that choice or alternative.
  Mr. LOUGH: I was not alluding to my hon. Friend. The right hon. Gentleman who spoke at the commencement of our proceedings to-day said if you have four Parliaments it does not matter at all making a fifth. An Amendment is brought forward by a Gentleman who represents a Cornish seat (Mr. Agar-Robartes), who does not belong to the district for which he speaks, and who does not live in the country. He lightly tells us we ought to form another section of the United Kingdom, and, without going into any of the difficulties as to how the proposal can be worked out, the suggestion is thrust upon the House. There is one most satisfactory aspect of the Debate, and I hope it will get us on a long way in our discussions of this Bill. It is killing the Ulster bogey. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"] Certainly. Hitherto in these Debates we have always spoken of "Ulster," we have always spoken of a "province," quite wrongly as I think, but from this day on we shall never speak of anything but "four counties." We have narrowed down the question, and, if we can succeed in showing the whole thing is absurd from the standpoint
  1098
  of the four counties, then we shall have cleared this proposal out of our Debates for good and all. What is the basis of the proposal brought before us? It is suggested because there is a large Protestant population in these counties. It is said they are not Irishmen, and that there are two nations, and they must be treated separately. I want, as an Ulster man and a Protestant, with nothing but Ulster blood in my veins, to repudiate that argument with every force I possess. It is a monstrous slander of Ulster Protestants to suggest, because they are Protestants, they are not good Irishmen. I think the exact words of my hon. Friend who dealt with this matter was that they were different in sentiment, in character, in history, and in religion. I do not believe it. If you went to a fair in Ireland you could not tell a Protestant from a Catholic.
  Mr. MOORE: I could.
  Mr. LOUGH: I was addressing myself to the Chairman, and I said one who went there with a fair eye, which you, Sir, would bring to bear on our proceedings at an Irish fair, could not tell a Protestant from a Catholic. If you looked at their houses you could not tell which was that of a Protestant and which was that of a Catholic. They both breed equally good cattle, and I say, in spite of what my hon. Friend has said, they are both largely filled with the same sentiments, they are both men of the same character to a large extent—and a singularly good and strong character it is—and they both have just the same history. I say the Protestants have suffered just as much in Ireland as the Catholics, and, when you suggest that the Protestants of Ireland are not to be classed with the Nationalists of Ireland, you must blot all recollection of Irish history from your mind before you make such a statement. With all respect to the leaders of the present movement in Ireland, in all past times the Nationalist movement has been associated with names of great Protestants, many of whom have died for the cause for which we are now struggling on the floor of the House. I might speak of Swift and Henry Grattan, but I will mention other names: Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Wolfe Tone, and John Mitchell. I could mention many Ulster men, who, like Henry Joy McCracken, were hanged in 1878–9, and who proved by their noble death their devotion to the principles embodied in this Bill. Coming down to modern times, there is Mr. Butt, who invented the Home

  1099
  Rule idea, and Mr. Parnell, both of whom were Protestants. The whole cause has been assisted more, perhaps, if you go into the merits of single individuals, by the efforts of Protestants than by the efforts of Catholics.
  I have said enough to prove that religion has not influenced men in supporting this great cause, and I believe the whole situation is disfigured by being handled by gentlemen who are not thoroughly acquainted with it, who have never lived in Ireland, and who never intend doing so, but who thrust a proposal upon the floor of the House to give their own party trouble and to give delight to their opponents. Whatever good intentions they may have, I do think they might give the matter a little more consideration before making such a grave and far-reaching suggestion. Let us look somewhat closely at the speech of my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment. He became conscious when about two-thirds through his speech that he had not given much reason for it, so he used these words: "One argument which may be given flashes across my mind." In that casual way this great proposal was made. What was it? "Home Rule for Ireland is claimed because the majority wish it. Well, the majority here are against it, and therefore we ought to deal with the four counties separately." He has failed to see there is a large minority of Catholics and Nationalists in the four counties and exactly the same conditions exist there as he makes the reason for bringing forward this Amendment in connection with the whole question of Ireland. If you examine the matter in the light of the very interesting map I have here, and you look at the structure of these four counties, you will see how ridiculous the proposal is. It is ridiculous alike with regard to that part of Ireland which is included and that part of Ireland which is excluded. There are parts of Fermanagh which contain as many Protestants as parts of the counties included. Why not bring in Fermanagh? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, but that is not the Amendment. I am for the moment treating the thing seriously, and, if it is intended to be serious, why not bring in Fermanagh? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Take Tyrone. There are many parts of Tyrone more Protestant than parts of the counties included. I argue you could not draw such a line, and this attempt to draw any line
  1100
  exposes the whole suggestion to the ridicule of the House.
  Then look a little more closely at the counties which are excluded. Take the county of Cavan. I always think if these Southern counties of Ulster were regarded a little more seriously there would be less difficulty. In Cavan, Monaghan, and Donegal, we have a substantial Protestant minority, and what we want is a good strong Protestant representation in the Parliament we are constructing, but the effect of this Amendment would be to strike thirty or forty Protestant Members out of the Dublin Parliament, and that is the way my hon. Friends would help the great cause which they all pledge themselves willing to forward. I think if a suggestion could come from the other side of the House by which we could ensure that there would be sixty or seventy Protestants out of the 164 Members in the Dublin Parliament, then this House might cease to worry about Ireland, because such a substantial minority as that would be able to look after themselves, and I venture to say, speaking as one of them and from what I know of their past history, they would be well able to do so. I think hon. Gentlemen opposite might well consider some words that fell from the Prime Minister. He said, "If any well-considered proposal were brought forward" —An hon. Member laughs. I do not think he should do so. I have been a long time in this House, and I have had to deal for many a long year with Gentlemen who sat on this bench representing the Unionist principle, and when they said anything, and especially the Prime Minister, we were accustomed to believe it, and to take their words in the sense in which they were used.
  Earl WINTERTON: Then your memory is very short.
  Mr. LOUGH: At any rate, the Prime Minister said, "If any well-considered proposal could be put forward for strengthening the Protestant interest, it would receive most careful and sympathetic consideration." I said I would say a word about my own county, the county of Cavan, in which I take a great interest. There we have this question debated from a different standpoint from that in which it is debated within the four counties. There we have a small minority of Protestants, though they are very active and prosperous. Although a minority, I can speak with confidence and say that for a century they have never

  1101
  made the slightest complaint of any ill-treatment from their Catholic neighbours. At the present time there is a great drawing together of Irishmen of different religions and different sentiments; certainly in the county of Cavan and other places you find men of all religions working harmoniously together for the development of the country. There have been several small industries started in the county of Cavan, the success of which has been assured by Protestants and Catholics and by landlords and land-leaguers uniting to develop the resources of the country to which they belong. If the object of this Amendment is to protect the Protestants, there never was a, more crude and ill-conceived notion brought before the House. What would be the effect of it? You would teach the people to think the Protestants are all within the fence drawn round the four counties, and there are hundreds of thousands of Protestants who would be outside the fence. You must proceed in another way. You must teach the Protestants they may repose perfect confidence in the patriotism and good-feeling of their Catholic fellow-countrymen.
  I believe myself that the feeling of Protestant Ulster is completely misunderstood in this House. They are men with strong political feelings. They think their course is to oppose any Home Rule proposal, and they pledged themselves to oppose it before they saw the Bill itself. When the Bill came in they hardly read it, but went on denouncing vigorously every proposal contained in it. Even if this Amendment were carried it would not in the least placate the hon. and learned Member who has just spoken. He would fight the Bill just as sturdily after the carrying of the Amendment as before. He may represent the opinion of the party opposite, but that opinion does not represent the opinion of Protestant Ulster. This strife must cease. They have lived together in the same country by the same industries, and I cannot but think that it is an unnecessary insult to throw on the Catholics, who may be a majority in the Dublin Parliament, that they would cast unfair taxation on Ulster. There is not a scrap of ground for that proposal. Look back at the ancient history of Ireland. The hon. and learned Member spoke of the Catholic Parliament and the intolerance it had displayed, but he seemed to forget that this was a Parliament at one time all Catholic and at another all Protestant. And all these Parliaments failed. Take Grattan's Parliament. Why did that fail?
  1102
  It was an Ulster Parliament built up largely by Ulster men, and it failed because there was only one religion represented in it. Every Parliament so constructed is bound to be a failure. There is nothing in this two-nation argument. One might just as well speak of there being two, three, and four nations in England There is no reason why men differing in religion should not unite to develop the resources of their country, and I believe if hon. Members on this side who support the Amendment would study this proposal in its crude and unworthy shape, they would not give the House the trouble of dividing upon it.
  Mr. H. TERRELL: The right hon. Gentleman said that the men of Ulster determined to oppose this Bill before they saw it. I believe that is quite true. But the right hon. Gentleman apparently forgot that we had been told over and over again in this House that the people of England gave the Government a mandate for this Bill before they saw it. The right hon. and learned Member for Dublin University has declared that this is one of the most serious matters which this House could ever be called on to deal with. The Solicitor-General, in the course of his speech on Tuesday, asked us on this side of the House that, "Do you really suppose that English Liberals and English Nonconformists are likely to turn a deaf ear to a claim by Ulster Protestants when they say that their Protestantism is in danger?" That is a question which hon. Gentlemen opposite have to answer tonight. It is not for me to answer it. The Protestants of Ulster are appealing to them to-day, saying to them in most earnest terms they can command that they believe their Church and their religion and their liberties are in danger. For that reason they are appealing to Liberals and Nonconformists in this House to come to their rescue and save them from a danger which they honestly and sincerely believe exists. There must be some conflict in the minds of hon. Members opposite whether they will answer this appeal and come to the succour of their fellow-countrymen in Ireland, or whether they will yield to party discipline and support this Bill. That such a conflict is going on is shown clearly by the speeches delivered on Tuesday by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leith (Mr. Munro-Ferguson), the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Captain Pirie), and the hon. Member for Stirlingshire (Dr. Chapple), The right hon.

  1103
  Member for Leith and the Member for Aberdeen have preferred their consciences to the dictates of party, but the Member for Stirlingshire has unfortunately convinced himself that the interests of party are entitled to predominate.
  I will ask the House just to consider the speech of the hon. Member for Stirlingshire, for it is really worth considering carefully. He puts very clearly, in the first instance, the case of the Protestants of Ulster. I must say that I thought, when I heard the commencement of his speech, that he intended to vote in support of this Amendment. In the speech he commenced by saying that
  "The Ulster protests are so genuine and her claims so just that any proposals put forward for consideration should have our earnest thought. I think to govern a people capable of governing themselves, can only be justified by the consent of that people. Ulster's protest is a genuine protest. It is a protest that has always been considered, and yet we are going to perpetuate the evil of governing her without her consent, if this Bill passes into law."
  I do not think that anybody could put more clearly and more concisely, or more cogently, this part of the case of the Protestants of Ulster. What is the reason which has enabled the hon. Member to consent to compel the people of Ulster to be governed by a Government to which they do not consent? The only reason that he gave was this, that he thought that at some future time we should have a federal Government, and that then Ulster might, if she thought fit, join herself to Scotland. He considers it is a justification for placing the men of Ulster tinder the Government of their hereditary enemies against their consent and most earnest protest, that, at some future time, indefinite and unknown, they may have an opportunity of associating themselves with and being governed by a Parliament in Edinburgh. I venture to suggest to hon. Members opposite that that is the feeblest possible reason to justify the placing to-day of the people of Ulster under a Government which they detest. It only shows how, in his mind, the hon. Member was seeking for some excuse to justify his action in voting against this Amendment, although in his heart he knew this measure was going to inflict a grave injustice on the people of Ulster.
  Let me pass from the speech of the hon. Member for Stirlingshire to consider for a moment the arguments that have been
  1104
  advanced against this Amendment from the benches opposite. I will take, in the first place, the speech of the Chief Secretary. The Chief Secretary, in the course of his remarks, spoke in the eloquent terms which he always uses on the beauty of Christian unity. He said he had often heard appeals to Christian unity, but he had heard them with very little hope of their being realised, however faint those hopes might have been in the past, they were herculean when compared with any hope he might entertain that this Bill would, if passed, promote Christian unity in Ireland. His only other reason was that in Belfast there are bankers who have branches in the South and West of Ireland, and that there are seedsmen who sell seeds to farmers in those districts. Therefore, he says,
  "One would require to hear a great deal more than he has yet heard to induce the Government in dealing with the problem of the Government of Ireland to suggest that these four particular counties should be excluded from the operation of the Bill and left as an annexe to the British Parliament."
  That argument may be used for an exactly contrary purpose. There are shipbuilders in Belfast who sell their ships in England. There are linen manufacturers in Belfast who have agencies in England for the sale of their linen, and if the argument is sound then these four counties should be left to be governed in conjunction with England. I venture to submit that the argument is neither sound nor worthy of a moment's consideration. And yet, that is all the Chief Secretary can say in support of his opposition to this Amendment. I have read his speech more than once, and it is the only argument I could discover.
  Then comes the Solicitor-General. The Solicitor-General commences with a very astute argument, and I venture to say although he puts his point as clearly as he does, it must have been the result of a very weak case. As I read it that argument was that because the British Parliament at times legislated for Ireland separately, therefore this Amendment ought to be rejected. It is quite true we pass Bills in this House which relate solely to Ireland. We also pass Bills which relate solely to London, to the Stannaries, and to the Counties Palatine, but that is no reason why these separate places should have a separate legislature. We also pass Bills not only for Ireland, but for the United Kingdom, and by parity of reasoning if that is any ground for setting up an independent Parliament for the whole of

  1105
  Ireland it is equally a reason for continuing this Parliament for the whole of the United Kingdom. The real reason which it seems to me should induce this House to support this Amendment is to be found in a few words in the speech of the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the province of Ulster—of these four counties, and of the dissensions which exist and have existed between Protestants and Catholics in Ireland as if they were merely political and passing differences of opinion which time, and short time, would cure. If that were the fact, a great deal could be said for rejecting this Amendment. But is it the fact? I would ask hon. Members to take their minds back to the history of these dissensions. You will find that the differences between the Protestants and the Catholics, between the Nationalists and the Unionists, are differences which cut deep down into the social life of the people of the country. They divide them by a chasm which cannot be bridged over by an Act of Parliament, which nothing but a very long period of time of peace can ever hope to bridge or to remove.
  The differences are not of recent origin; they go back into the history of Ireland from earliest times. The differences were originally racial differences. They originated in the years gone by when England sought, by planting colonists in Ireland, to drive out the ancient Irish, and when the ancient Irish sought to drive out the colonists. Then came the Reformation, when these differences became religious differences. From the time of the Reformation, the colonies which were planted in Ireland were colonies composed exclusively of Protestants, while the ancient Irish and the former colonists had been mainly Catholics. The differences then became differences between the Protestant colonists and the ancient Irish inhabitants. The Protestants predominated, and for centuries the Protestants tyrannised over the Catholics. You have only to consider history and see how that tyranny resulted in massacres, first on one side and then on the other—massacres the memory of which is not to be got over so easily as hon. Members may imagine. Over and over again for centuries you found the Protestants and Catholics fighting, massacring, and slaughtering one another. These differences existed deep down in the social life of the country, at any rate down to the date of the Union. Hon. Members will remember even in the time of Grattan's Parliament, in 1798,
  1106
  the Rebellion of Wexford; they will remember there was a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. There you saw the depth of the feeling which animated the two sides. Has that feeling gone today? That feeling is not allowed to drop, for the intensity of that hatred has been kept alive by this Home Rule movement. Look back at the history of 1798; look at the Massacre of Vinegar Hill and of Wexford Bridge. Yet to-day we find the men. who perpetrated these massacres are held up by hon. Members now in this House as. heroes.
  Can you expect the Protestants of Ireland to be willing to trust their lives and their religion to the domination of their hereditary enemies, when you find the men who are speaking so sweetly in this House to-day are in Ireland speaking of the heroes of Vinegar Hill and Wexford Bridge? No, Sir. The reeling goes down too deep. The feeling is one which will never be got rid of so long as one side or the other has the domination in Ireland. In 1800, when the Act of Union was before the Irish Parliament, it was supported by the whole of the Roman Catholic hierarchy without a single exception, and the reason they gave for supporting it was that unless there were a Union, so that the domination could be taken away from either side, Ireland would always be subject to internal warfare. That that reason was sound has been proved by what has followed. It is from the date of the Union that the prosperity of Ireland has dated. It is since the date of the Union that the great city of Belfast, the greatest city in Ireland, has grown. It is from the date that neither party was allowed to dominate that we have had comparative peace. Hon. Members will remember that the First Lord of the Admiralty, in the course of his very eloquent speech upon the Second Reading, pointed out that from the date of the Union the differences had been slowly but surely disappearing. The differences of 1798 were far keener than the differences and rebellions which took place subsequently, until we come to today, when I suppose, if it had not been for these Home Rule Bills which have from time to time accentuated the differences and reopened the sores which were healing, you might have had comparative peace and quiet restored, and an absence of this religious and racial hatred which exists in Ireland. It is the introduction of this measure, it is the holding out to the Catholics of Ireland the hope that the day is coming when they shall be the dominant

  1107
  section, when they will have the power to dominate not only the people of the South, but the people of the four counties—
  The CHAIRMAN: I am glad the hon. Member is coming back to the four counties. I was afraid he was going to make a Second Reading speech.
  Mr. H. TERRELL: I was thinking of the four counties, and I thought I showed, before you stopped me, that I was dealing with them. It is for that reason that Protestants, particularly in the North of Ireland—I do not care whether it is merely the four counties, or whether you include Tyrone and the other counties of the province of Ulster—feel, and justly feel, that they are going to be put to-day under the government and the domination of the men who have for centuries been their hereditary enemies, and if they are going to be placed under that domination that their liberties and their religion are not safe. For that reason they appeal to Protestants and to Liberal Members in this House, as they appealed in 1886 to the. Liberals and Nonconformists in this House then. They appealed then successfully. In those days there were giants among the Liberal party; there were men who either held their principles more strongly or who were not then so dictated to by party interest. We know from their speeches that there are some hon. Members opposite who will support this Amendment. I hope and trust there will be many who, considering this from the point of view of the men in the Northern counties in Ireland, will say that they will follow their predecessors of 1886, and come to the support and succour of their co-religionists.
  Mr. NEWMAN: The first day this Amendment was discussed the Prime Minister expressed astonishment that no Member for Ulster had spoken in favour of or against it. From what has happened this afternoon he has no longer any cause for astonishment. Ulster has spoken. I was rather surprised when he said that, for this Amendment has been moved by an hon. Member on his own side of the House. Therefore it was the duty of the Government first of all to explain to us what their attitude was going to be. They have now explained that their attitude is one of non possumus. The attitude of the Unionist Members who represent constituencies in Great Britain has been explained with courage, candour, and consistency by the Leader of the Opposition, the
  1108
  right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), and others. There remains to be expressed the attitude of the scattered loyalist minority in the other three provinces of Ireland. I read the other day a speech delivered by a Welsh dissenting minister on the Established Church (Wales) Bill, in which he said—
  "It is for majorities to shout, and for minorities to squeal."
  Owing to our barbarous electoral system, the scattered loyalist minority in the three provinces cannot even squeal in this House, because they have not got a single representative, although they number over 300,000. I myself, although I have the honour of representing an English division, have lived nearly the whole of my life in County Cork, and up to the time of the Local Government Bill, which was passed in 1898; I was able to take some share in the government of my county. In that year I happened to be High Sheriff of the county, and I summoned the last two old grand juries before that Bill came into operation. I make this confession to the Committee, that I never until last year, although I have lived in the South of Ireland practically all my life, had crossed the Boyne. I went up to the great meeting which was held in Belfast, which was attended by delegates representing the Southern Unionists. That was an eye-opener as to what the determination of Ulster to fight this Bill means. I recognise that if the Government were genuinely going to say to Ulster: "You may march out with drums beating and colours flying, and with all the honours of war," and that if Ulster was wishful to go out on these terms, it would not be for us in the South of Ireland to say her nay. But if she did so, we in the South well know that she would do her best for us while this Bill was going through this House, and even after it had gone through this House. We heard this afternoon from the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond), who is an important person in this discussion, that he, like Pharaoh of old, has no intention of letting Ulster go. I think our modern Pharaoh is right, for if he were to let Ulster go it would mean the entire recasting of this Bill. The hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Devlin) made use of the aphorism a short time ago—
  freedom comes before finance."
  But freedom for Ulster walks hand in hand with financial chaos in this particular Bill.

  1109
  Take two things only. Take the complicated finance of the measure and the settlement of the land system; both vital and both essential. How could you work one or the other if you cut Ulster out? Supposing Ulster were contracted out of the Bill and supposing the Bill in consequence were sent to the limbo of things forgotten. Would it be mourned as Rachel mourned over her children by the Nationalists of Ireland? I do not think so. A short while back this Bill came before the Convention in Dublin. It was a convention, I quite admit, large in numbers and representative perhaps of the majority of Nationalist opinion, and I know the Bill was unanimously blessed by that convention. There were no amendments discussed, and the Bill was accepted as a whole with loud cheers and acclamations. A few weeks later it came before another convention, which sat in Cork, and which was thronged with Irishmen—Nationalist Irishmen—men yielding no whit in nationality to those who blessed the Bill a few weeks before. Speeches were made and resolutions proposed and seconded by men whose names are household words in Nationalist Ireland, and yet not one solitary speaker was found to bless the Bill. I will just quote a short leading article from a newspaper which represents All-for-Ireland opinion in Ireland—the "Cork Free Press." In Cork eight out of nine members belong to the All-for-Ireland League:—
  "The finance of the Bill is false and fraudulent. It is based upon a deficit which does not exist—"
  The CHAIRMAN: This does not seem to refer to the question of the exclusion or inclusion of the four counties.
  Mr. NEWMAN: I know perfectly well that all that the Nationalist triumvirate who rule Nationalist opinion—the hon. Members (Mr. John Redmond, Mr. Devlin and Mr. Dillon)—believe they have to do is to rush the measure through a Single Chamber, gagged and bound as we are at present—a measure that Protestant Belfast will not have, and that All-for-Ireland Cork despises. I believe they are making a miscalculation. Before two years are out they will be on their bended knees asking the Government to allow Ulster out and begging Ulster to go Out. But I candidly admit, as a matter of personal explanation, that this Amendment has come upon me as something in the nature of a thief in the night, and I an afraid it has come upon us in the Southern parts of Ireland
  1110
  as something of the same way. I want to try to persuade myself that the Amendment is moonshine and is not seriously meant. I want to believe that the words of the cryptic invitation addressed to Ulster by the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs some while ago were spoken to mean nothing and to signify nothing. I realise perfectly well that Ulster has had plenty of determination to stand by us in the past; but, as things are, and with this Amendment sprung upon us, I am not going to give a vote which might be fraught with terrible danger, and certainly will be fraught with anxiety, to the voiceless minority in Ireland. Yet until we get some assurance from the Government that they are prepared to throw over the First Lord and the Foreign Secretary, I shall be unable to follow my party and support the Amendment.
  Sir RYLAND ADKINS: However much many of us on this side may differ from the hon. Member in his view of the dangers of Home Rule, we welcome his adhesion to the principle of the solidarity of Ireland and his unwillingness to support an Amendment which would break off a fragment of Ireland, important though it be. I rise partly in order to meet the challenge which was laid down by the previous speaker. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. H. Terrell), whose speech was couched in terms of the most honest gloom, made an appeal to those on this side of the House who happen to be both Protestants and Nonconformists. I happen to be a Protestant and a Nonconformist, and I admit that the problem of Ulster and the Irish Parliament is a problem which every Member of the House does well to consider carefully, and which to-day has been placed before us by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) in a way which impressed every Member of the Committee, and which is the highest and fairest way of conducting controversy. I would suggest to the hon. Member for Glasgow that this is far too grave an issue to make it wholly fitting to suggest that the hon. Member for Stirlingshire decided to vote against it because he was sacrificing his conscience to his party. We who vote against this Amendment are just as much acting according to our sincere convictions as hon. Members who have made so strong an attack on the Government in favour of the Amendment. Those who support Home Rule in England, and many who

  1111
  have supported for more than a quarter of a century, have not done so for the fun of the thing. There was no special amusement in being a Home Ruler in England in the eighties and the nineties, and those who did it did it because they considered it good for Ireland and for the United Kingdom.
  What is the issue raised by this Amendment? It raises really two issues, one in this House and one in the country. In this House it is a perfectly legitimate tactical move to attempt to destroy the Bill and to focus opposition with the object of destroying it, and it is quite clear now that those who vote for the Amendment are really voting for an Amendment intended to wreck the Bill. That purely Parliamentary issue will be decided in the Lobby according to the conditions of Members in all parts of the House on the general question of the Home Rule Bill. But of course it is true that this Amendment raises in the country, though scarcely in the House, the serious question whether part of Ulster ought or ought not to be excluded from the purview and scope of the Irish Parliament. I am sure we all thoroughly recognise the sincerity and seriousness of the objection taken to the inclusion in this Bill of Ulster by Members from that part of Ulster, and by many other Members sharing their views in the ranks of the Opposition. What, therefore, are the reasons which occur to many of us why we cannot agree to meet the objections which are thus urged? We realise that they are sincere. There was a passage in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson), when he turned, with his usual dexterity, against Members of the Nationalist party, which appears to me to apply to some extent also to those to whom he was speaking. He was speaking of Nationalists who at one period and in one crisis were denouncing Great Britain, and at another period were expressing affection for Great Britain, and he inferred therefore that there was no reliability to be attached to anything that had been stated by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. The true interpretation is this. Whether it be Members from Ulster or Members representing the great majority of the Irish nation, they have expressed from time to time their sincere feelings for the moment, but if we are to interpret in this House the true and permanent value of all these speeches, whether from above or below the Gangway, we must interpret them by
  1112
  the facts of history, and particularly of recent history, and by the facts of Ireland at the present time. This is not the first occasion on which representatives from Ulster have been in the most violent opposition, the most sincere opposition, and the most unrestrained opposition to proposals which have become law and to actions of the Executive Government. One or two Members who have spoken in this Debate opposed most vehemently the Executive Government of the Conservative party when it was acting in a conciliatory spirit throughout Ireland years ago. The Ulster party in times past opposed Catholic emancipation, and opposed the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and when, they come here, speaking through the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. H. Terrell) about the impossibility of Protestants in the North of Ireland being put under the heel of their hereditary enemy, some of us would like to know what is their position to-day with regard to those controversies in which they and their predecessors took so active a part. Is the hon. and learned Gentleman still opposed to Catholic emancipation, or is he willing that the Catholics of Ireland should have the same rights of citizenship as himself?
  Mr. H. TERRELL: I have never been opposed to Catholic emancipation.
  7.0 P.M.
  Sir R. ADKINS: I cannot tell the hon. and learned Gentleman how grateful I am for the candour of his answer, because the whole theory of these two nations as hereditary enemies of each other is a theory which breaks down when a man once admits that both nations, and men of all faiths should have full rights of self-government in Ireland. That is the point. The very people to-day who are opposing Home Rule and opposing the inclusion of these four counties are using the same language and taking up the same attitude, and framing their speeches and their thought in the same way as those who oppose Catholic emancipation and the disestablishment of the Irish Church, and therefore while we respect their sincerity no less are we not right in doubting the wisdom of their judgment when time after time they and their predecessors have been wrong before, and when the very men who are opposing this now confess that their predecessors were wrong in their opposition to those previous reforms which now the vast majority of educated opinion throughout the British Empire has approved. That is our first point, that we distrust the

  1113
  judgment of the Ulster representatives because they have on previous occasions been falsified in history. Then Ulster showed a great power of adaptation after the granting of Catholic Emancipation and after the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, that she has grown in prosperity in spite of repeated legislation and administration which the Orange representatives have opposed. Where a province shows that power and that adaptation, are we not justified in believing that the full granting of self-government to Ireland will give Ulster an opportunity which she will take of showing her power of adaptation still further? Many of us who are Protestants and Nonconformists, believe that Protestantism in Ireland will have its full influence only in the theatre of an Irish Parliament. We should be antiquarians, and not politicians, if we dealt with those matters merely by reasoning from the past, although reasoning from the past is admitted as legitimate by the contributors to the Debate.
  What is the position at present? I come back to the illuminating phrase of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. H. Terrell) as to "hereditary enemies." The vision which seems to haunt his mind is that of the sturdy Protestants of Ulster being sent to the stake or butchered by the vast majority in the rest of Ireland. I grant that in times past, when the peasantry had memories of historic wrong, there were grave elements of danger in any change which was tried by any party, but now we are dealing with a country in which more than half of the farming community are peasant proprietors, and when the policy of land purchase is supported by all parties in the State. You are dealing with a condition of things, economically and socially, which must remove the people from revolutionary temper or revolutionary temptation, and, therefore, you are dealing with a state of things in which a wealthy and powerful minority, distinguished for its resolution and for its commercial enterprise, would have the very best opportunity, and the practical certainty, of not only not being tyrannised over, but of having something very like the real ascendency which comes from the legitimate exercise of those powers. These are the grounds on which some of us, while sympathising with the sincere and strenuous attitude of Members from Ulster, and while desiring in a great measure of this kind to meet all legitimate opposition, yet feel ourselves justified in
  1114
  voting against the Amendment. We feel ourselves justified in supporting the principles of this Bill being applied throughout Ireland, not in the interest either of Catholic or Protestant, but in the interest of all Irishmen whose capacity for harmonious working together will never be fully ascertained until this great experiment has been put into operation.
  Mr. CHARLES CRAIG: The hon. Member for the Middleton Division of Lancashire (Sir Ryland Adkins) informed the Committee that at the time of Catholic Emancipation the Ulster party were against it. I do not think that is strictly true. A very large proportion, I should say, of the Nonconformists in the North of Ireland were in favour of Catholic Emancipation. Later on they were in favour of the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. I do not think we should attach much weight to that particular argument, but, even if true, when Catholic Emancipation was effected, Catholics received what I am glad to say, was their due. When that happened, what could Protestants who were opposed to it have done? Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that we should have shouldered rifles and gone down and fought the people in the South of Ireland. [An HON. MEMBER: "It was suggested."] I never heard of that suggestion in the case of Catholic Emancipation. It was passed, and those opposed to it realised that they had lost their fight, and had to submit, but the position is very different with the question of Home Rule. We have by no means lost our fight, and we are not going to submit. I wish to put this point to the hon. Member to show how absolutely different the two cases are, and how absurd it is to try to draw any analogy between them. We have taken up our position, and I believe the vast majority of Members on the opposite side believe us when we say that we are absolutely determined in Ulster that if Home Rule is passed we will resist by every means in our power. That is a very different thing, because if this Bill is passed into law, and Home Rule is set up, we can fight against the results of this Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "How?"] Well, I do not know that it is any part of my business to explain how that is going to be done. If hon. Members live long enough to see this Bill passed into law, they will have the satisfaction of seeing how it is to be done. That is the difference between this question and the question of Catholic Emancipation. There was nothing to be done after Catholic

  1115
  Emancipation was carried, but there is a great deal to be done after this Home Rule Bill is carried.
  The hon. Member began his speech by saying he believed that all the Members who are going to vote against this Amendment feel as sincerely that the Amendment ought not to be carried, as we feel in our opposition to Home Rule. I believe he believes all that. I am not prepared to believe—I utterly refuse to believe—that there is any serious or considerable section of the party opposite, or any serious section of Liberals in the country, who believe in the justice of this Bill, or believe in the justice of putting Ulster under the domination of a Nationalist Parliament in Dublin. It may be that the "cohorts" which the Prime Minister has behind him will answer the word of command to go into the Lobby and vote against the Amendment, and that they will eventually vote for the Third Reading of the Bill. That does not mean that they believe it will be good for Ireland to give Home Rule, or good for Ulster to be included in the Bill. I would like to say one or two words as an Ulster representative. I notice that there has been a great desire on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite to have the opinion of Ulster men, and to hear their reason for voting for this Amendment. First of all, I should like to say that we are dealing with this not as a question affecting merely the four counties mentioned in the Amendment, but as a question whether Ulster, whatever Ulster is arranged to consist of, should be included or excluded. We have said in Ulster and elsewhere that we will resist and never allow ourselves to come under the influence of a Parliament in Dublin. We have said in pursuing that determination that we are prepared to use any means, the most extreme means, we have at our disposal. We have expressed that determination, and therefore, assuming that Home Rule is passed into law, and assuming that we carried out our determination, what is the result? We cut out practically from the effective working of the Bill a certain portion of Ireland. That is precisely what the hon. Member (Mr. Agar-Robartes) proposes to do by his Amendment.
  One of the reasons why I am forced to vote for the Amendment is that I consider I am in an illogical position before my fellow-countrymen and the electors of this country if I refuse to vote for the Amend-
  1116
  ment which proposes to do by legal and Parliamentary methods exactly the same thing which we propose to do if the Bill is passed into law by arbitrary, and what you may be pleased to call unconstitutional methods. My position would be quite illogical if I went to the country to address public meetings if I were to say to my audience that if this Bill is passed into law, Ulster will resist and never allow itself to come within the scope of the Bill. The obvious interjection of any member of the audience would be "Oh, but we have offered to leave Ulster out of the Bill, and you voted against that Amendment." It must be obvious from the point of view of an Ulster Member that it is quite impossible to vote against the Amendment, and that, on the contrary, it is our plain duty to vote for it. But do not let it be supposed that because we vote for the Amendment we like the Bill. The hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) said some of my colleagues had stated that this was a wrecking Amendment. That may be so. I think it is a wrecking Amendment, and so much the better. I would use any means to wreck the Bill. That is one reason why I will vote for the Amendment. Let no man think that the exclusion of Ulster from the Bill would make us like this measure. I say it would remove one of its worst blots, but to imagine that because Ulster was removed from the Bill we in Ulster would like Ireland to have Home Rule would be ridiculous. It has never been suggested by any colleague of mine. We think that, with or without Ulster in the Bill, Home Rule would be disastrous to Ireland and also to the United Kingdom.
  There is no real demand for Home Rule in Ireland, in spite of what is said by hon. Members below the Gangway. Every evidence that is coming to hand shows that at the best the bulk of the people in the South and West of Ireland are apathetic on this question. I say that, without hesitation, although I shall be referred to the fact that hon. Members below the Gangway are being returned year after year for the purpose of supporting Home Rule. In spite of that, observers in Ireland will tell you, as I tell you now, that the demand for Home Rule in Ireland is nothing like so great as it was in years gone by. We know that Nationalist papers in Ireland and Radical papers in this country will do their best to misrepresent the position we have taken up on this subject. I desire to make one point clear to the

  1117
  people of this country. It does not require to be made clear to my fellow-countrymen in the North of Ireland because they understand that we are doing the best we can in their interest as well as our own. It has been suggested that by accepting this Amendment we are deserting the Unionists in the rest of Ireland. I do not agree with that, because I believe that our fellow Unionists in the other parts of the country can be better helped by us if we are still an integral portion of the United Kingdom than if we were part of an Ireland in the Parliament of Dublin. So our friends in the South and West need not have the slightest fear that anything which we will do will lessen the protection that we might be able to afford to their interests. Obviously any proposal excluding Ulster from this Bill must logically be supported by any hon. Member coming from Ulster. I must protest against the absurd statement made by two hon. Members that Unionist Members from the North of Ireland do not represent the sentiments of their constituents. You cannot produce in this House representatives who will represent the feelings of their constituents more faithfully than we do here on this one particular question of Home Rule. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford cited the names of several Liberal candidates as evidence of indifference in the North of Ireland on this question, but, as my hon. and learned Friend behind me pointed out, the only hope of success of these candidates was by opening the campaign by the declaration that they were opposed to Home Rule.
  We have always admitted that in the North of Ireland there is a very large body of Liberalism and Radicalism, and I would go so far as to say that were this question out of the way many seats now held by Conservatives would probably be captured by Radicals. That is the strongest proof of the hostility of the people to Home Rule, and one of the strongest refutations of the silly statement that the feeling of Ulster against Home Rule is rapidly weakening. That feeling is stronger today than it ever was. Hon. Members opposite will take upon themselves a great responsibility if they refuse to exclude Ulster from this measure, for which there has not been one single argument except the sentimental argument, that as soon as we have responsibility for the government of the country we will forget all our past differences and we will work harmoniously together. That is all nonsense. How
  1118
  can Members who do not know Ireland as we know it come down here and talk' such stuff as that? To think the bitternesses, which I hate to think unfortunately do exist in Ireland and have shown themselves in hundreds of ways, should suddenly cease because a Home Rule Bill passes is absurd. We who live on the spot know our own fellow countrymen better than hon. Members, however benevolent they may be, who live out of the country. We know instinctively and by practical experience that once a Home Rule Bill is passed and a Nationalist Parliament is set up in Dublin, from that day the prosperity of Ulster and of the Protestant parts of Ireland will begin to decline, and all the labour we have expended in the past and all the magnificent progress we have-achieved will from that moment begin to recede, and in the course of time, I cannot say how many years, the position of Ulster will be as bad as the rest of Ireland.
  Under the Parliament Bill no change can be made in this Bill after it passes the first time in this House, because if it were altered in the following year it would be a new Bill and the whole proceedings would have to begin de novo. I do not think it is possible to alter it even by agreement, because it is not possible to get any agreement with Ulster upon this Bill. After the Committee stage of this Bill is completed the only other occasion on which it would be possible to carry this Amendment would be on the Report stage, but once the Bill has been read a third time this year it will be impossible to embody this change in the Bill at any time. Therefore hon. Members ought to give a great deal more thought than they have given to this particular Amendment, and ought to treat it with a great deal more seriousness than they have. Only three hon. Members on that side and seven or eight on this have contributed to the Debate, and I do not think that anyone can say that anything said on this side has been in the nature of obstructive or unnecessary comment. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University (Sir E. Carson) remarked, this is probably by far the most important point that will come before the Committee during the whole discussion on this Bill. The responsibility on hon. Members is very great. If this Bill becomes law, and if the unhappy state of affairs which we predict comes about and if there are disturbances in Ulster, as I am sure she will resist to the end the operation of this Bill, hon. Members will

  1119
  have to remember that they had an opportunity during the passage of this Bill through the House of Commons to exclude Ulster from this Bill and prevent that disturbance and bloodshed. I trust that hon. Members opposite will consider carefully this great responsibility. It is the earnest wish of my colleagues and myself that nothing of the dark nature to which I have referred will ever come to pass. Whether it is possible for hon. Members opposite to come to an agreement for the exclusion of Ulster with the hon. Member for Waterford I do not know. I am inclined to agree with those who have said that the effect of this Amendment would be to wreck the Bill. But I think that would be a far smaller calamity from the point of view of hon. Members opposite than the effect which would undoubtedly ensue if this Bill were passed into law with Ulster included in it.
  The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George): The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has made one very significant statement—I will call it an admission—that after a hundred years of the Union in Ireland the feelings between Protestants and Catholics was so bitter that you could not trust them to live together without having over them the strong hand of the Imperial Parliament. I should not have called that a very strong testimony to the success of the Act of Union in that country. But he made another statement which I thought very remarkable, having regard to the Amendment which we are discussing. He said that it was by far the most important Amendment to the Bill. If that is the case it is rather remarkable that it was never put down by someone on the hon. Member's side, or it is still more remarkable that having been put down, it having occurred to someone that it might be debated, it was actually withdrawn. Why was that? I believe with the hon. Gentleman that it is a very important question, and ought to be debated very fully, and that it is a matter we were bound to consider in the framing of any Home Rule Bill. And if anyone imagines that the Government did not give very careful consideration to it and did not examine every proposal made on the subject to deal with Ulster, then he is not doing justice to the care and the considerations that were bestowed upon this very important matter. But it is rather odd that although we have had speeches from several hon. Members from
  1120
  Ireland to-day, we have not had a single speech, with the possible exception of that of the hon. Member, really supporting the Amendment; and the first reason which he gives for supporting the Amendment is not that he believes it on its merits, but that he thinks it will wreck the Bill.
  What is the character of the proposal? Ireland up to the present has been treated for all legislative purposes as a separate unit. Take every great question that affects the lives of the people there. The sort of questions that will be dealt with by a Home Rule Parliament when it is set up are questions on which Parliament, without distinction of party, have treated Ireland as a whole. The land question was dealt with, and there was no separate Bill for Ulster. There were Land Bills introduced by Liberal Governments and Land Bills introduced by Conservative Governments, and I cannot recall a single land measure where Ulster or these four countries were treated as a separate unit from the rest of Ireland. Take the Church question. There you had pretty well the same proportions in Ulster—you had the same resistance from Ulster, from those four counties.
  Sir E. CARSON: No; the Presbyterians were in favour of it.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The right hon. Gentleman opposite knows the facts much better than I do, but I think he will find that the majority of the Members from those four counties were opposed to the Disestablishment of the Church in Ireland. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] That is so. Here was a very vital question with regard to the Church affecting the general interests of the people, and there was no demand for separate treatment from these four counties. On the contrary, Ireland for that purpose was treated as a unit. Take the question of temperance legislation. Ireland has been treated as a whole, and has always been treated as a whole by every party for the purpose of dealing with temperance questions. Education, which has excited the most fierce controversies between religious denominations in this country, when it was dealt with for Ireland, that country was treated as a whole, and as a separate unit of the United Kingdom. The police also is a very controversial matter in Ireland, and there you have a separate organisation for the whole of the island. Even in regard to insurance which we had last year there was separate treatment for Ireland, but

  1121
  there was no demand that Ulster should be treated separately from the rest of Ireland. On the contrary, Ulster threw in her lot with the rest of Ireland in the demand that the provisions of the Insurance Bill should be the same for Ulster as for the other three provinces of Ireland. [An HON. MEMBER: "That was in the Imperial Parliament."] And the University is another case in point—it was a Bill for the whole of Ireland.
  Take all the great questions through years of controversy in Ireland and in this country, during the last twenty or thirty years, or even beyond that, and in regard to all those questions it will be found that Ireland has been treated as a whole, as a separate unit, and there has never been a demand from any county in Ireland, or from any part of Ireland, or from any party in Ireland that Ulster should be treated separately. What I put is this: Here is a demand, for the first time in a measure dealing with Ireland, that you should carry it out, and that Ireland should not be treated as a separate legislative unit, but that she should be split up into two. What do you mean? There is no agreement. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Austell (Mr. Agar-Robartes) suggests we should take the four counties, and the right hon. Gentleman on the other side said he would not accept four counties, and would certainly want two more. The hon. Gentleman who spoke last said he would have nothing to do with four or six counties; he must have all the counties of Ulster.
  Mr. C. CRAIG: I beg pardon, I did not say that. I dealt with this question in a general way, and I said the constitution of Ulster with regard to minor questions could be settled later.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: At this time, after Home Rule has been before this country twenty years, after a Bill has been through a Committee of the House of Commons once before, where it was thoroughly dealt with, the Members for Ulster have not even made up their mind what Ulster is, and yet this, let the Committee remember, is characterised by one of the Ulster Members as one of the most important Amendments on the whole Bill. If there were a demand from Ulster that Ulster should be treated separately, then, of course, the Government should give it serious consideration. When has it ever been made? It has not been made, not even in this Debate. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Waterford, I
  1122
  remember on the Second Reading, challenged the right hon. and learned Gentleman, whose sincerity in this matter no one has ever doubted, and said, "Do you now make a proposal?" With all his skill and adroitness he evaded the question by putting another, which is a very effective way of getting rid of a difficult question. But even then he was not prepared to make any suggestion at all. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, with great candour, in the powerful speech he delivered this afternoon, made it perfectly clear that an Amendment of this kind would wreck the Bill, and that he would support it. This is a very different thing from putting forward the serious demand that Ulster should receive separate treatment. This is not the first time that Home Rule has been considered in this House. [An HON. MEMBER: "And beaten."] There are many causes that are beaten once and yet win in the end, and that is especially true with' regard to Ireland. The point I was putting is this, that this is not the first time that Home Rule has been considered as a distinct legislative proposal in this House. I was a Member of the House in 1893 when such a proposal went through Committee. There was a very powerful opposition to it—I suppose about the most powerful one has ever witnessed in this House—led by some of the ablest men who have ever led the Opposition. Was there a proposal made then that Ulster should be treated separately? I never heard of it. It was not made. It is really an open secret, as a matter of fact, that the suggestion was made, I believe, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, who was rather disposed to propose something of the kind, but he never did it. Why? Because Colonel Saunderson, who was known to be opposed to it, and known to be opposed to it as one would expect of him, on thoroughly chivalrous grounds. It was not proposed at all in 1893.
  Mr. PIRIE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman one simple question? In 1893 was the Bill brought forward by the Government as a possible solution of this Home Rule question on a federal basis, as is proposed now? That is the point.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not mind answering my hon. Friend's question, although it takes me rather to another field. As a matter of fact Mr. Gladstone repeatedly suggested the federal solution. [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] He certainly did. If I only had three minutes I could get the actual manifesto in which he did

  1123
  so. Mr. Gladstone certainly had it in his mind at that time, and he always kept his eye on Home Rule as the first step, but he always protested against dealing with the two questions simultaneously. This proposal before the Committee has never been put forward seriously by Ulster What are the arguments in favour of it? One argument in favour of it is that the Belfast Chamber of Commerce cannot trust the Nationalists of Ireland. Do they trust the present Government? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO," "Yes," and "Hear, hear."] Do they trust the Liberal majority in this House of Commons? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] I have been reading the same document as that from which the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) quoted extracts. It is on the whole a very moderate statement of that case. The language they used about the Nationalists of Ireland is moderate, temperate, mild, Christian, and not to be compared with that which they used about the present Liberal Ministry. When they talk about the danger to Belfast from having a Nationalist majority to govern them, one is constantly told about the ruin to industry, the ruin to the trade of the country, the ruin to its credit, and everything else which comes from a Liberal Administration. But to merely say that they do not approve of a particular majority for the time being is no reason why you should tear up Ireland into little bits. You have got the same disapproval of the Conservative majority if you happen to be in the minority, and when you are in the minority you always protest against the majority. If Belfast had a policy which commended itself to the majority of the people of Ireland, I have no doubt they would convert the minority into a majority. There is no country in the world where you can have a permanent majority. You have got Catholic countries where the Catholic majority has vanished in the course of time, as very nearly occurred in Belgium the other day, a thoroughly Catholic country. The Irish race are very shrewd and thrifty, and I have no doubt that all sorts of questions, which up to the present moment have not arisen, because kept subordinate to Home Rule, will come to the front in Ireland later on—questions of interest to the North and South, questions between town and country, questions between the industrial and farming population, questions of taxation, all of which will arise in Ireland
  1124
  as they have arisen in every other country in the world, so that solidarity must necessarily break up, and you will probably have other parties formed in Ireland. Therefore it is for Ulster to make out her case here. For the reasons which I have given up to the present the Imperial Parliament has treated Ireland as a unit. It has never been suggested up to the present that you should split it up, and if there is a demand that it should be split up, then that ought to be a formal demand, it ought to be a stated demand, you ought to have the terms of that demand and its limits and the conditions and the grounds upon which you make it. Up to this very hour, although Parliament has been considering this question for twenty or thirty years, it has never been put forward, and how can you expect upon an Amendment moved by an hon. Friend of mine on this side of the House, an Amendment for which the Opposition accept no responsibility, which they do not put forward, and which is moved by a private Member on the Ministerial side of the House, making such a gigantic demand, and which would be a serious departure from every precedent, how can it be seriously argued that ought to be done. One hon. Gentleman who spoke on the other side from Ireland did say he regarded this Amendment as fatal to Home Rule; but even that did not justify him in his conscience in voting for it. Why? He comes from the South. He knows that if Ulster sets up a separate organisation of its own that the Protestants of the South will not have the support which they expect from the Protestants of the North. But it is not merely that. Let any hon. Member of this House or right hon. Member, take up the religious census of Ireland. My hon. Friend has chosen four counties. In some of those counties the Protestants are a bare majority. In Londonderry, for instance, there is a population of about 140,000, and out of that population there is only a majority of 10,000, I think. [An HON. MEMBER: "There is many more—read the figures."] I am taking now not merely the county but the city. I have got first the county, where there is a Catholic population of 41,458, and the others are 58,000. In Londonderry City the Catholic population is 22,000 and the Protestant population is 17,000.
  Mr. MOORE: They return a Unionist Member.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: And those are the people you cannot trust. With a

  1125
  Catholic majority and a pronounced Catholic majority they return a Unionist Member. That is, there is only a majority of about twelve or thirteen thousand taking the county and the town together. That is a very near thing. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is over 15,000."] Let us take the other counties. Take a county like Tyrone.
  Mr. JOHN GORDON (S. Derry): That is not in the four counties.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I know it is not, but I want to take the counties outside now. [Interruption.] I do hope I shall be allowed to proceed. We really listened to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite without interruption. In Tyrone you have a Catholic population of 78,000, and a Protestant population of 60,000. That is the other way about. What does that mean? Let my hon. Friend and those who sympathise with him consider what that means. It means that in Londonderry, where there is a comparatively slight majority of Protestants over Catholics, the Protestants would be inside this new autonomous area.
  Mr. MITCHELL-THOMSON: Not autonomous.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: In this new area whatever it is, although that is one of the things that has never been put forward. In Tyrone there is a slight Catholic majority of sixteen or seventeen thousand. Does my hon. Friend suggest that the Protestant minority in Tyrone should be outside and should not get the support which comes from the presence of this purely Protestant body in Antrim, Belfast, Down, and Derry? Does he really imagine that he is helping the cause of Protestantism by doing that? Why, in all these counties you will find the same state of things. Anybody who looks at the map will see how impossible it is to divide Ulster on those principles. Here is a map of Ulster, and the Protestant portion runs in a thin, narrow line across, while the Catholics cut in here and cut in there, and you have not got anything in the nature of a well-defined area. That is one of the difficulties. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said it could not be done. I am not a believer in those impossibilities, but at any rate, a proposal which has all the practical difficulties, the financial difficulties and geographical difficulties which this has, and there is no doubt about that, before
  1126
  you put forward a demand of that kind, which is full of difficulties, which, although they are not insuperable, are very grave, you ought at any rate to be clear and definite, and there ought to be an overwhelming demand for it. Is there a demand from the Protestants of those four counties, assuming now that Home Rule passes, that they should not go in or that they should save their own skins, as it were, and just protect themselves, and that they should not go in to help at all in an Irish Parliament to protect the rest of the Protestants of Ireland? By all the most honourable traditions, by their greatest historical achievements, by everything that constitutes their claim to pride, what is their boast? It is that they have defended not merely the Protestantism of their own little corner, but that they have been the champions of Protestantism in Ireland as a whole. Are they going to abandon those traditions? [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no."] If they are not going to abandon them, then upon what possible grounds can they support the Amendment? They can only do so on one ground, and that is that if this Amendment is carried it will wreck the Bill.
  I should like to know what the real claim of Ulster is? I can only take it from its spokesmen in this House. If those spokesmen to-day had put forward a serious, considered demand on the subject, then Parliament and the House of Commons and the Government would be bound, of course, to give it consideration on coming from any portion of the people. They have not done so. What is their demand? The right hon. Gentleman who is their most eloquent spokesman, what did he say? He said this is impossible, and if it is carried it destroys the Bill. What, therefore, is the demand of Ulster? Not that she should be protected herself, not that she should have autonomy herself, but the right to veto autonomy to the rest of Ireland. That is an intolerable demand. There are two or three constituencies in Wales where you have got opposition to the Welsh Church Bill. Is it suggested they should be left out, or, because of their veto, that the rest of Wales should not count? Take the case of Johannesburg, or rather the case of the Transvaal. Suppose there were a demand from Johannesburg, fund suppose they said they would be in a minority—because you must assume that— of one-third of the population, said, "We are the wealthiest part of the Transvaal,

  1127
  and because we are British in blood—if they were—and because we have got business connections with the British Empire, because we are loyalists, because we have always stood by the Empire, we do not demand separate autonomy for Johannesburg, but we demand the right to refuse autonomy to the rest of the Transvaal." Now that is the situation here. It has never been put forward in any other way. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham said so last night, that this is a thing you cannot get. If it is impracticable. That means if you vote for it and if it is carried, wrecking the Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, and every other speaker on the other side of the House admitted it. Put forward in that way no one can support the Amendment—
  Lord HUGH CECIL: I did not admit it.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: The Noble Lord was much too wily a controversialist to do so. He knows the danger of an admission of that kind; but his franker colleague here has admitted it. He is a member of the legal profession and he frankly stated that in his judgment it would wreck the Bill.
  Sir E. CARSON: I did not say that.
  8.0 P.M.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE:I think the right hon. Gentleman did say that it was perfectly impracticable. That means that if it were carried, and if his attitude were correct, that then it would wreck the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman very frankly admits now it would wreck the Bill. A demand put forward in those terms without purpose, put forward without any consideration, without any working out or stating of a practical alternative, I say frankly no man who wants Home Rule for Ireland could possibly support it. I do not believe in all these fears and apprehensions as to what will happen in Ireland when Home Rule is carried. Those days are past. Bigotry, after all, is not the monopoly of any sect in the State. We have all got our share of it, and I have no doubt at all that those who are dominated by it abuse their powers and privileges. But it is not merely one Church that does that. On the whole I think we can trust to the good sense of any community that it will not be dominated very long by sectarian intolerance. We have every
  1128
  testimony that where the Catholics are predominant in Ireland the Protestants receive absolute fair play. Here is a statement made by a leading Protestant in Cork. He lives and does business in a Catholic district; therefore he has had some experience. Alderman Beamish, of Cork, said at a meeting addressed by Lord Midleton that—
  "it was his duty to state that they (the Protestants) in the South of Ireland trading over vast areas of the province of Munster, had not felt any serious inconvenience when dealing with their Catholic neighbours. He was extremely glad to say so. It was only fair to make that statement, as it was not right that it should be used as an argument against Home Rule."
  Mr. NEWMAN: Was he not against Home Rule?
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: He was a Protestant. If hon. Members will look at the experience of Canada they will see an exactly similar state of things occurring there. In Quebec you have a Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, but there are no charges of intolerance there
  Mr. MOORE: There are every year.
  The CHAIRMAN: I hope that hon. Members who have already laid their views before the Committee will listen to other views without interruption.
  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE: I do not think that Quebec, any more than any other part of the world, is absolutely free from intolerance and bigotry. That is not my claim. My claim is that in Quebec the Catholics have administered the affairs of the State without oppressing their Protestant fellow-subjects. The same thing applies to Ontario, where the Protestants are in the majority. I am perfectly convinced that once you grant Home Rule to Ireland, not that it will be free altogether from bigotry any more than any other part of the kingdom, but that Catholics and Protestants will work side by side, that often you will find Protestants in alliance with Catholics, and that the general effect on the government of Ireland will be one of emancipation and liberation. There has never been a case in the world where freedom has been given to a population—and you cannot have freedom without self-government—where it has not been the great antidote of bigotry and intolerance. I am convinced that once that is done in Ireland hon. Members opposite, themselves, will live to see the day when they themselves will admit that it has been an enormous advantage to the Protestants in that country.
  Mr. WALTER GUINNESS: I am sure the Committee will admire the adroitness with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has avoided the main issue raised in this Debate. He has not said a single word to justify the proposition put forward from that side, that although Nationalist Ireland has a perfect right to decide the form of government under which they shall live, Unionist Ulster shall not have the same right extended to them. The chief argument of the right hon. Gentleman was that put forward last night by the Solicitor-General, that Ulster has never been treated apart for the purpose of legislation. That is a very sound argument from a hide-bound old Tory, but what has precedent to do with this Government? We know perfectly well that the revolutionary proposal to govern Ireland from Dublin is a far greater change than to divide Ulster from the other three provinces and allow her still to enjoy union with Great Britain. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that this division of Ulster from the rest of Ireland had never before been proposed. In 1893 the position was absolutely different. No one seriously expected that the Home Rule Bill as then discussed would ever pass, because we had a House of Lords which could prevent it. But this Bill has received a Second Reading, and we are considering it on the assumption that under the Parliament Act the Government intend to carry it in spite of the wishes of the majority of both Great Britain and Ireland. Therefore the position of Ulster and of those who wish to see her excluded is entirely different. The right hon. Gentleman quoted a statement by Alderman Beamish at a recent meeting in the South of Ireland as if Alderman Beamish was speaking in favour of Home Rule. He was speaking at a meeting specially held to protest against Home Rule. I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman did not admit that when my hon. Friend interrupted him. There is no tolerance in the South of Ireland for Protestant views. My reason for saying that is, that in the whole province of Munster, in spite of the widely advertised opportunity which was going to be given to Protestants to serve on local bodies, there are only two Protestant members on the county councils. I do not think that that shows very wide tolerance.
  My real reason for rising is that the hon. Member for Waterford stated this afternoon that there was not a single Unionist
  1130
  outside Ulster living in Ireland who could support this Amendment. I wish to explain how it is that some of us who have interests in Ireland feel that we have no choice but to support it. The hon. Member for Waterford did not say a word about this Amendment on its merits. He dealt in a very extraordinary way with the Census Returns giving the religious divisions in the North of Ireland. He made out that the Catholics and Protestants in the province of Ulster were about equally divided. The actual fact is that there are only 690,000 Catholics, whereas there are 836,000 Protestants, or 886,000 altogether of all other denominations. When he came to the four counties he made out that there was very little difference, but his figures were a little mixed. The real truth about these four counties is that there are twice as many members of other denominations as there are "Roman Catholics, the figures being 725,000 against 315,000. The hon. Member made out that a great many of the Protestants were Nationalists, but he did not produce any figures in support of his statement. I would point out on the one hand that there is not a single constituency in Ireland which returns a Nationalist Member where there is a majority of Protestant electors. On the other hand you have two constituencies—namely, Londonderry City and North Fermanagh, where there is a Roman Catholic majority, and in spite of that Unionists are returned to this House. That effectually disposes—
  Mr. KELLAWAY: Of the bogey of intolerance.
  Mr. W. GUINNESS: No; it disposes of the statement of the hon. Member for Waterford that the Protestant Home Ruler is commoner than the Catholic Unionist. The Prime Minister, the Solicitor-General, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have all attacked Ulster Members for deserting their co-religionists. The Solicitor-General chose the metaphor of Ulster taking to the boats and leaving the defenceless behind. As he chose that metaphor, he cannot complain if his attitude rather reminds us of the cheap taunts of another politician who, from a position of complete safety, recently made wide suggestions of cowardice against people in a quite different position. In that case, I believe the general opinion, at any rate on this side of the Atlantic, was that the best judges of conduct were those affected by the common danger. I

  1131
  believe that almost every Irish Protestant will recognise that, under the present conditions, it is the duty of Ulster Members to take this opportunity of trying to secure for their constituents freedom from this iniquitous measure. I believe that Unionists living outside Ulster would blame their allies in this House if they opposed this exemption. It would be merely a dog-in-the-manger policy for us who live outside Ulster to grudge relief to our coreligionists merely because we could not share it. Such self-denial on their part would in no way help us, and it would only injure our compatriots in the North. We know perfectly well that Ulster fully shares our detestation of this Bill from a wider point of view than her own interests.
  Apart from the religious standpoint, every Unionist holds that this proposal would be disastrous to Great Britain and also against the true interests of Ireland. We have seen the wonderful progress which is being made in Ireland since the land question was tackled, and every Irishman who has seen that progress feels that it is madness, in the interests of Nationalists and Unionists alike, to tear up this young plant of prosperity by the roots. We recognise that Ulster Members have their first duty to their own constituents. Their cry has always been, "Ulster will not have Home Rule." They have shown that they are prepared by force if need be to prevent the law of a Nationalist Parliament from running in Ulster. But they have never said that they would interfere in the local affairs of the rest of Ireland if the rest of Ireland were given Home Rule. How, therefore, in view of this attitude can they reasonably oppose the granting by peaceful means of that very exclusion for which their constituents are prepared even to take up arms and risk their lives? It is quite true that we who live outside Ulster look upon Ulster in this respect as the sheet-anchor of our liberty. We know that without Ulster—we can be quite frank—Home Rule sooner or later must break down. That is not the object of the Amendment. That is an accident—
  And, it being a Quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, under Standing Order No. 8, further proceeding was postponed without Question put.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  NATIONAL ELECTRIC CONSTRUCTION COMPANY BILL.— (By Order.)
  [Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.]
  Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [6th June] "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Question put, and agreed to. Bill read a second time, and committed.

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.
(IN THE COMMITTEE.)
[Mr. MACLEAN in the Chair.]

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL.

  CLAUSE 1.—(Establishment of Irish Parliament.)
  (1) On and after the appointed day there shall be in Ireland an Irish Parliament consisting of His Majesty the King and two Houses, namely, the Irish Senate and the Irish House of Commons.
  (2) Notwithstanding the establishment of the Irish Parliament or anything0020contained in this Act, the supreme power and authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall remain unaffected and undiminished over all persons, matters, and things within His Majesty's Dominions.
  Postponed proceeding resumed on Amendment proposed [11th June] on consideration of Clause.
  Which Amendment was in Sub-Section (1), after the word "shall," to insert the words "subject to the counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Londonderry being excluded from the provisions of this Act."—[Mr. Agar-Robartes.]
  Question again proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  Mr. W. GUINNESS: We believe that without the wealth and industry of the North an Irish Nationalist Government must atrophy and die. We believe that Ulster cannot be brought into this scheme, that the resolute men there will break the bonds which party convenience compels the Government to try to weave upon the limbs of Ireland. Whether Ulster is left out peacefully, or whether she stays out by armed resistance, the indirect results to us, the Unionists outside Ulster, will remain the same. If this Bill passes without the consent of the electors and bankrupted by the extrusion of the only progressive part of Ireland, the time of our bondage

  1133
  must be limited; both parties to the arrangement must eventually find the Home Rule settlement is unworkable, and they must re-enact that Union under which Ireland has recently made such great advances. For Ulster to refuse this salvation would not be to help her friends, but would be merely taking up an attitude of mock heroics. It is because we know the earnestness of her opposition that we are anxious to obtain this extrusion without civil strife and rebellion. There is one other point in the speech of the Solicitor-General on which I should like to say a word. He asks whether the Irish Unionists really suppose that English Liberals and English Nonconformists would turn a deaf ear to the arguments that Protestantism and liberty would be in danger. How can we fail to do so when we see the statements of eminent Nonconformists in the Press and read their speeches. Dr. Horton has shown quite clearly that political expediency is by a large number of Nonconformists to be preferred to the claims of justice. He has said in a letter to the "Times" that—
  "Nonconformists were compelled by political principle to support this Bill, though they knew only too well what a Catholic Parliament might mean, and though they fully apprehended the reason of their co-religionists' alarm and protest."
  So real does he consider the danger that, as has been pointed out this evening, he suggests that Irish Protestants should return to England and Scotland and leave Ireland to the Roman Catholics. Would it not be much simpler to leave Ulster out altogether? In the same letter Dr. Horton bases himself on Burke's opinion that—
  "only government with the consent of the governed can be good and righteous government."
  You can only fulfil this condition in Ulster, you can only get government with the consent of the governed, by leaving out the area where there is a Protestant majority. You can not escape from this result of your own fundamental law. If you really believe, as you profess to believe, that a country cannot prosper under a Government which it mistrusts, Ulster has an unanswerable claim to separate treatment, because, rightly or wrongly, they mistrust the efficiency, the sympathy, and the justice of a Nationalist Parliament far more deeply than any Nationalist in Ireland in recent years has mistrusted the justice of the English Parliament.
  Captain MURRAY: One point has been urged by the hon. Gentleman opposite and by other hon. Members, that it is proposed
  1134
  to govern the four counties to which this Amendment refers against their consent. I merely wish to say this in reply, that if the argument of hon. Members opposite in that respect be pressed to its logical conclusion, then every county in England in which there is a majority of Conservatives who object to being ruled by a Liberal Administration, ought to be entitled, if they so desire, to set up a Parliament of their own.
  Mr. SAMUEL ROBERTS: The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech to-night, did not, in my opinion, receive with very much sympathy the suggestions put forward on behalf of Ulster. What is the demand of Ulster? It is a very simple one. It is to be left as they are. They do not demand a separate Parliament for Ulster. That has been made perfectly clear by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University. They do not demand a separate Parliament; but they do ask to be left alone as they are. Who are these people? They are the descendents of a population which was planted 300 years ago in that part of Ireland. That population was partly composed of Scotchmen, partly of Englishmen, put there for a special national purpose—to retain that part of the country for England. They have always been true to us. They are of a different race and of a different religion from most of the rest of Ireland. All they ask is that they should be allowed to remain under the English Parliament and attached to the English Throne. The city of Belfast is the centre of this district. It is a place which at the time of the Union was a comparatively small city. I think the population was then some 12,000. This place has been entirely made by the industry of the population. English money has gone principally to the agricultural districts, and quite rightly so. These industries in Belfast have been built up by the energy and spirit of the people. What they fear is that if a Nationalist Parliament is placed in Dublin their industries and their prosperity will be endangered. That is their fear. I think that fear is a just one, because if there was a Nationalist Parliament they must always be in a minority. Their position in this Parliament is different. They have Gentlemen upon this side of the House who work with Members from the Northern part of Ireland and see their interests are protected, but in a Parliament

  1135
  in Dublin they would always be in a minority without any protection, and they fear that, having created the greater part of the wealth of Ireland, they will be put under oppressive taxation. I had the pleasure of going to Ireland to that great demonstration in Belfast, and I was very much impressed with what I saw. For three hours a long procession marched in front of us; you could tell by the demeanour of the men who took part in that procession that they were in earnest and meant what they said. I did not see a single drunken person that morning, and I saw no policemen to look after order. There was perfect order maintained, and I and those other Member who went over from this side came to the unanimous conclusion that you cannot force this Bill upon them. You must see to-day you cannot do it. It is the crux of this Bill that the demand of the population of that part of Ireland is to be left as they are. It is a reasonable demand, and is bound to receive attention, and I believe it has and is receiving attention in this country. These are very serious questions. I cannot believe that the Government wish to push a matter of this kind to extremes, yet the ultimate result would be that they would have to coerce the people of Ulster to obey the laws of an Irish Parliament.
  Something has been said during the Debate this afternoon about the analogy of our Colonies, and Australia and South Africa were mentioned. What is the position there? In both cases you have a number of separate States with simply one connection, the simple thin thread of the Crown. What has happened? These States voluntarily came to the conclusion that it was to their mutual interest to combine in one union power, and they did, but in order to do that they had to give up their rights as separate States. They gave up their rights of taxation; they gave up their Imperial rights of defence, and in Australia and South Africa each State was left with little more than what we would call in this country county government. In fact, in South Africa they are called provincial councils, and the object of these councils is to administer local affairs and raise local money for purposes of education and matters of that kind, matters of defence, duties, taxes, is common to all from the administration of a united Parliament. That is the position in the Colonies. This Bill gives neither a Colonial constitution nor federation; it is a half-way house. We could never consent
  1136
  to give a Colonial constitution to Ireland; it is impossible. If we did, Ireland would practically be a separate nation, because the only connection between Ireland and England in that case would be the simple bond of the Crown, as in the Colonies, and we all know that in regard to our Colonies that thread is very fine indeed. If any one of them wanted to sever their connection they could not be resisted by us. That is a position which we can never allow and it is a position which any Government would not dream of allowing.
  The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean): I think the hon. Gentleman is going rather wide of the Amendment.
  Mr. S. ROBERTS: I was endeavouring to meet the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford, in which he was putting the national demand of Ireland. In the greater part of his speech he was putting forward the demand of Ireland for national independence, and he was pointing out that he could not accept this Amendment, because if it were accepted it would not give what he called national independence. I was trying to meet that argument; I was speaking about the Colonial situation and saying that we could never allow that to take place in Ireland. The hon. and learned Gentleman said he could not accept this Amendment because it would not enable Ireland to govern itself, but he did not favour us with the arguments which he used on former occasions. I wish he had done so. I was surprised he went so far as he did. The speeches in which he put forward the national demand of Ireland on other occasions are rather interesting. Here is an extract from one of them:—
  "The consummation of all our hopes and aspirations is to drive out English rule sooner or later."
  If this Bill is going to lead to anything of that kind, of course it must receive a very obstinate resistance. I will not pursue that further, because I quite admit it is perhaps going beyond the scope of this Amendment. I only wish to say that with regard to the demand of these four counties of Ulster, we are bound to stand by the loyalists of Ireland, as Mr. Gladstone used to call them. We shall stand by them because they have always been loyal to us, and because we wish above all things for national safety and national security by continuing Ireland as one nation with England. While we desire that we are willing and anxious to continue the beneficent work which we are doing in Ireland at the

  1137
  present time. She is treated better than our own population at the present moment. She is costing this country the sum of something like £5,000,000 a year,£l,500,000 is the deficit at the present moment, but in addition to that we ought to have a large contribution from Ireland to Imperial Services. At the present moment we know Ireland is contributing nothing. Her contribution in that respect should at the very least be £3,500,000, therefore it is accurate to say that she is costing us £5,000,000. We are willing to go on making this payment, but we are not willing to continue it if Ireland is to become a separate nation.
  Mr. RAYMOND GREENE: I have not up to the present occupied a single moment of the time of the House in the discussions upon this question of Home Rule, and I wish to say a few words upon the very important question raised by this Amendment. I have listened to every speech that has been made in this Debate both on Tuesday and this afternoon, and I have heard the arguments in favour of this Amendment repeated again and again. I believe every Unionist Member has a right to state the case against Home Rule and in favour of this Amendment, and that it is his duty to do so. The arguments in favour of this Amendment and the arguments against this Bill have never in my opinion been adequately answered from the other side. I have listened to all the speeches made by right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite, and I have given them the greatest possible attention, but I have not heard a single argument which really justifies the action they are now taking in attempting to drive out the Unionists from Ireland from a position which they were invited by this country originally to fill, a position in which they are perfectly content and a position which it is more than unfair and cruel to deprive them of. I listened on Tuesday afternoon to a very interesting speech from the Solicitor-General in reply to a speech that was made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London. We all know when the Government have got a particularly bad case, because they invariably send for the Solicitor-General, and they are perfectly right in doing so, because if the Solicitor-General is unable to get them out of their difficulty there is no other man in the House who can possibly do it. I yield to no man in my admiration of the abilities of the Solicitor-general and his courtesy and good temper, which it is impossible to ruffle. I am quite
  1138
  sure he will forgive me when I say that I never realised how unanswerable were the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London until I heard the Solicitor-General attempting to answer them himself. Until then I never realised how weak is the position of the Government in regard to their treatment of Ulster and the Unionists of Ireland. I never realised the weakness of that case until I heard the Solicitor-General, with all the great skill at his command, endeavouring to defend the position of the Government. The one argument which he addressed to the House was the fact that Ireland is for some purposes treated at the present time as an entity by the present Parliament. The Solicitor-General ignored the very great difference between the circumstances of the case when Ireland is treated as an entity by this House whilst Ireland is governed by the Imperial Parliament, and the position which Ireland would hold treated as an entity when governed by a Parliament of her own, which would be detested and mistrusted by at least a quarter of the people of that country.
  I listened to another speech on the same afternoon by the Prime Minister upon this Amendment, and he appeared to derive considerable satisfaction from the suggestion he made that the Unionist Members from Ireland were in this case upon the horns of a dilemma. In that, I think, the Prime Minister was mistaken, because the boot is on the other leg. The Prime Minister and the hon. Members who support him are on the horns of a dilemma in regard to this Amendment, because if they accept it they will be called to account by their taskmasters who sit on the benches below the Gangway, and the Government are aware what that means. On the other hand, the Government oppose this Amendment because they have to face the fact that the feeling of Ulster, being what it is at the present time and being so strong, they will never be able really to put into operation the Bill which is now before the House. The Prime Minister took refuge in dealing with his favourite topic in the safeguards which he believes he has introduced into this Bill. He said that if the hon. Members for Ulster or the Unionist Members on this side, or in any quarter of the House, were to put forward any suggestions for strengthening those safeguards, he would be prepared to consider them. It is easy for the Prime Minister to be generous in regard to that matter, because he knows

  1139
  perfectly well that it passes the wit of man to devise any safeguards which would make the position of the Unionists of Ireland satisfactory under this Bill. He knows that whatever safeguards you insert when once the Unionists of Ireland have been placed under the domination of their hereditary enemies those safeguards, whatever they may be, are absolutely not worth the paper upon which they are written. I wish to put one question to the Solicitor-General and to the Government. Are they really going blindly forward endeavouring to force this Bill upon the country, shutting their eyes to the admitted difficulty of the question of Ulster, or have they, as has been hinted by some right hon. Gentleman opposite, got up their sleeve some possible scheme which they think may remove, or at any rate to a very great extent remove, the hostility of the Unionists in Ireland? If that is the case, and if they have in mind some scheme in that direction, I appeal to them to produce it at once and so save this House from a great waste of time and a certain amount of acrimonious Debate which will be engendered if the Bill is debated in its present form.
  Mr. HARWOOD: I feel that I must make some kind of protest against the tone which has animated the speeches of hon. Members opposite. The Leader of the Opposition referred in his speech to the prospect of his party coming into power. If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so, I would tell him that no party will ever come into power or ever do any good if they do not show more spirit and faith than that which has marked the speeches to which we have listened. I remember a remark made to a person who was reading the Book of Jeremiah, I presume for the first time, and it was, "Cheer up, things are really not so bad after all." I venture to offer hon. Members opposite the same advice with regard to this question. You cannot solve the Irish question unless you have some hope and faith. We acknowledge it is a difficult problem, we acknowledge it is a complicated problem; but a difficult and complicated problem will never be settled by people who have not got the spirit of faith. I should like to refer to two things which were particularly suggested by the hon. Member for Ulster who preceded the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The first suggestion was that we who are supporting this Bill are supporting it not because we believe in it, but
  1140
  because we are afraid of the Whips. That is not a fair statement. There are amongst my colleagues on this side of the House quite enough Members whom I know personally to wreck this Bill or any other Bill, whatever may be the cajolery or threats of the Whips, if they did not believe in it. You must dismiss that from your minds as an explanation of affairs. I am speaking as probably one of the oldest Members of this House who has stood up for Home Rule. I find it was in the early seventies that I first sent my mite to Mr. Butt, and I am here chiefly not because I care to be here, but because of my enthusiasm for this cause. That enthusiasm is the enthusiasm of the Englishman. I look at it from an English point of view. Some Members of this House will remember that poem of Wordsworth where he says, how, after returning to scenes he visited in his youth, he found the old zeal and enthusiasm of his youth had not diminished, but had broadened and intensified. It is the feeling of many of us here. It is my own feeling. We are here because we believe by supporting Home Rule we are supporting not only that which is best for Ireland, but that which is best for England and for Great Britain.
  The hon. Member from Ulster who spoke just now said he thought we who were supporting this Bill had not given sufficiently serious consideration to the position of Ulster. Let me say our enthusiasm for Home Rule makes it impossible for us to support an Amendment of this kind. We are enthusiastic for that Home Rule which shall fire the national imagination and warm the national zeal, and a Home Rule scheme with a great piece torn out, bleeding, from the rest of Ireland is impossible. It must be all Ireland or nothing. It must be the nation of Ireland or nothing. Not only we but Members opposite are unanimous, I believe, in feeling that if this Amendment were to be carried we throw out Home Rule. It must be as I say, the nationality of Ireland or nothing. Are we then oblivious and indifferent to the claims of Ulster?' Not at all. I assure the hon. Member I know this position of Ulster has given, and is giving, great concern to many of my colleagues on these benches. We are wishful to do what is wise and right, and I think I may say we shall be fearless in doing that once we are convinced of what is the right course. I should like to ask my friends from Ireland, for I have many business connections with the North of

  1141
  Ireland, and am very familiar with the feeling in that part of the country—and I say here what I have often said privately—are you quite sure that you are not making a great mistake when you seem to assume that the separations between the people of Ireland are going to continue? I do not think they are. We have heard a great deal about the impassable gulf separating Catholics and Protestants. This kind of talk is a little old-fashioned. I venture to think we are moving not in England alone, but in Ireland and the world, on lines which make ail these considerations of little value.
  I put before my Friends from Ulster the evidence of history. What ground have they for believing their Roman Catholic fellow subjects will treat them as we have been told again and again from those benches they fear they will treat them? What ground have they for believing they will tax them unjustly, will dominate them unjustly, and that they will really be placed under what will amount to religious tyranny? Is there any reason for believing that is likely? When one comes to ask that question, he can only answer it by appealing to the state of the world elsewhere. What is the condition in the other States of Europe and of the world where there are Protestants and Catholics joining together in carrying on their national history and national affairs? I am not here to plead particularly for the Roman Catholic Church, but I think all these arguments assume an attitude on the part of that Church which is not justified by history, and which is certainly not justified by the present conduct of that Church. I am moderately familiar with Belgium, where you have a fierce separation between Catholic and Protestants, and yet I have never heard the Protestants of Belgium, many of whom I know, complain that they were unjustly treated by their Catholic fellow-subjects. Such injustice can only come from one of two directions. It can only come either from the Catholic Church itself or from the character of the nation with which you have to deal. I say there is no ground for believing it will come from the Catholic Church. I turn again to Germany. I am continually visiting that country, and I talk a good deal with those who take a part in its affairs, and, as Members of this House know, there is a strong feeling between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, but I have never yet heard any Protestant there complain that Catholicism was unjust or oppressive
  1142
  to his religion. You find the same thing everywhere, and I ask my Friends what evidence there is anywhere to justify their feelings and their opinions. I say none.
  There is another thing. I say that, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, it is clear that in no part of Europe at the present moment does it take part in such cruel injustice as is suggested will follow in Ireland. If not the Church, who else is going to do it? It can only come from the people. What is our knowledge of the Irish?. I do not wish to flatter. It would be unworthy, because this is a serious occasion and a serious problem. I would scorn to flatter. I have been in this House with Irishmen for a good many years. I know their country very well, and I would ask: Is there any one who knows Irishmen and the Celtic temperament of Irishmen who does not know that of all the people in the world they would be the least likely to be guilty of cruelty or injustice? [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the boycott?"] That is part of a policy and it succeeds. I am speaking of the ordinary personal characteristics of the Irish race, and I say that those personal characteristics are less likely to belong to people who would join in any kind of oppression such as we have had foreshadowed from the other side. Let my Ulster Friends be assured that we Liberals, who are so sincere about this Bill, have not neglected to weigh with the greatest possible care all that they may say and all the objections that they may urge. I am quite sure, if we believed that the passing of this Bill would result in the Ulster Protestants being placed in the position which we have heard sketched in such dark colours we would resist the Bill. I have spoken frankly with many of my colleagues, and I am certain we would take no part in putting such an honourable race as the men of Ulster in a position of injustice or oppression. It is because we feel quite certain that that will not occur that we urge the passing of this Bill.
  Years ago I ventured to say in this House to a Member from Ulster when we were talking this matter over that I was quite certain if Ulster men frankly accepted the position under the Bill and threw in their lot loyally and cordially with the rest of the nation, Ulster would eventually rule Ireland. I believe that that will occur. I do not want to underestimate the power of numbers, but I believe that, in the sense of determining the destinies and moulding the future of Ireland they can take a prominent share

  1143
  if they will only take up the position that I suggest. The position of Ulster among the people of Ireland themselves is a guarantee for that. I think it is a thousand pities that, instead of the melancholy Jeremiads and those hopeless speeches as to what is going to happen in the future, it would be much better if Ulster would rise to the opportunity which now presents itself. There has been a good deal of talking about Grattan's Parliament. We forget that that was a Parliament exclusively of Protestants. We forget, too, that the privileges and powers of Ireland all this long time have been in the hands of the minority, and that minority naturally shrinks from having to take its place on the broad basis of fair representation. If it will only take that place under this Bill frankly, cordially, and loyally, I believe, and I know that my colleagues on this side have the same feeling, that these miserable prophecies will be absolutely nullified, and that we shall have a united Ireland, Protestant and Catholic, working together there, as they work in other countries, for the common good.
  Mr. SANDERSON: The hon. Gentleman says that the speeches delivered from these benches have been devoid of cheerfulness. I cannot say that he has added very much to the spirit of cheerfulness. The reason for that is obvious, and it is that he, like everybody else, feels the importance of this Amendment. The Mover, at all events, can have no reason to complain of the way in which his Amendment has been received by the Committee. There has been some criticism upon its exact form, and as to whether other counties ought to have been included besides the four he has mentioned. But that is absolutely a matter of detail. If I may say so, speaking personally, I am exceedingly grateful to him for having moved this Amendment, because it has given us an opportunity of asking the Government once more—How does it propose to force this scheme of Home Rule upon a million and a quarter of people who are determined not to have it? That is the real difficulty. The question was put to the Prime Minister very clearly last Tuesday by the Leader of the Opposition. It is a most material question, and it was based upon a statement made by the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to the effect if Ulster reject the solution which we proposed, or made it
  1144
  impossible, some other solution would have to be found. Now that statement involves the admission, and I do not think anybody will dispute it, that Ulster has power to make this scheme impossible, and does anybody doubt that if it has the power it will make it impossible? If anybody doubts that, it simply means that he is disregarding facts patent to the whole country.
  The question put to the Prime Minister was, "What is the Government going to do if Ulster persists in its present determination?" What was the answer we received? We have been used to receiving evasive answers from the Prime Minister. We have heard over and over again "Wait and see." It was not "Wait and see" on this occasion; it was "Oh, that remains to be seen." There was a slight variation in the form of the answer, but it was equally evasive. That answer was not worthy the occasion, and it was not worthy of the Prime Minister. It was nothing less than a mere trifling with the occasion. He went on to say that my right hon. Friend was speaking of the future. It is not a matter for the future. It is a matter for the present, and it is a most pressing question for the present. It amounts to this: If you have one portion of Ireland which is determined that it will not accept this scheme, what is to be done? You must have some other scheme, or else you are absolutely wasting the time of the House of Commons in asking us to discuss this Bill, which can never be put into effect or become practicable. I ask this question once more of the Chief Secretary, and we are entitled to get an answer before this Debate closes. If we do not get an answer, then I submit the, Government is discredited in the opinion of every reasonable man in the country, because this is what the country is thinking about. They are convinced that Ulster is determined. Is not the right hon. Gentleman convinced of that?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Determined to do what?
  Mr. SANDERSON: Not to accept this scheme, and, if this scheme is passed not to live under it. Does the right hon. Gentleman want any better evidence?
  Mr. BIRRELL: Yes.
  Mr. SANDERSON: Sufficient evidence has been given of it. Great public meetings have been held which cannot be said to have been bogus meetings. They have been honest and genuine, and they have expressed a determination not to accept this scheme. Responsible Members of

  1145
  Parliament have got up in their places and have said that the Ulster men will not have this scheme. Does he want any better evidence? Will nothing but fighting and bloodshed satisfy the right hon. Gentleman? If he goes on in his present course he will probably get that evidence. At all events, the country is satisfied that the Ulster people are not going to have this scheme, and they have read with interest the statement made by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs that if they will not have this scheme, some other solution must be found. We want to know what the other solution is going to be, and we are entitled to demand an answer before the Debate closes to-night. I wish to refer to the speech made by the Solicitor-General on Tuesday. His chief answer to this point was that hitherto this Parliament has dealt with Ireland as one entity, and therefore it is impossible to deal with a part of Ireland as one entity. I cannot follow the Solicitor-General's logic. If it is possible to deal with Ireland as one entity, I cannot understand why it is impossible to deal with a part of Ireland as one entity. It is no argument to say that hitherto Ireland has always been governed as one entity, and that the people who live in Ireland have been satisfied with that. There is nothing in that. They have been satisfied with it because they have been members of the United Kingdom, and the laws have been passed by the Imperial Parliament, not by Irish Members but by Members for England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Is it any use referring to a precedent of that kind when you are making an absolutely new departure? Home Rule is an absolutely new departure—at all events, there has been nothing like it for the last hundred years.
  Is it not legitimate to ask the Government to consider whether, in making this new departure, they will not consider a part of Ireland which is in many respects absolutely separate from the rest of Ireland? The argument of the Solicitor-General does not do him credit. If he had to have recourse to an argument of that kind, it shows how extremely weak the case of the Government must be. Having had some experience of the Solicitor-General's abilities, not only in this House, but in the Courts of Law, I know that if there is one Gentleman who can make bricks without straw it is he; but he has not been able to produce a better answer to the arguments put forward from this side of the Committee. The hon. and
  1146
  learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) gave us this afternoon certain figures. Of course, I am not able to follow him in those figures. He said he did not wish to put his facts too far. In one respect he was pushing his figures too far—quite unintentionally, I admit. He gave us figures in regard to the election in 1906. Of what value are those figures? I have heard it stated that the reason why Home Rule was not introduced during the 1906 Parliament was that it had not been put before the electors. What is the good of giving figures if they are only applicable to the 1906 election? The point is this: Admittedly you have a million and a quarter people in Ireland who are determined, that they will not have this scheme. Are the Government going to insist upon forcing this scheme of Home Rule upon such a large number of perfectly inoffensive and loyal members of the United Kingdom against their will? I ask once more for an answer to that question.
  Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: I think the speeches of hon. Members opposite would have possessed more force if they had not been preceded, and, to a large extent, answered by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fulham (Mr. Hayes Fisher). I think we are entitled to complain of a certain amount of disagreement between our opponents on this Amendment. Apparently there are two schools of thought. First the one to which the hon. Member who has just sat down belongs, who support the Amendment, and consider that the separation of Ulster is a practicable plan, which admits of serious consideration from a constructive point of view. To that school also belongs the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Moore), and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour). But the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) and the hon. Member (Mr. Hayes Fisher) both declared with very convincing frankness that the Amendment was an utterly impossible one, that it was a wrecking Amendment, and that by no possible means could Ulster be separated from the rest of Ireland without the Home Rule Bill coming to an end. Some hon. Members apparently possess that opinion on the opposite side, and some do not, but I do not think anyone who has listened to the Debate and who has any desire to see a Home Rule Bill go through, will have any doubt as to how he should vote, because, contrasting speeches we have heard, by far the most convincing were those which plainly told

  1147
  us that votes given for the Amendment were votes given to wreck the Bill. No one has yet attempted to meet the argument of the right hon. Member (Mr. Hayes Fisher) last night. I have heard no one attempt to deal with the practical difficulty of the scheme of separating these counties from the rest of Ireland. Obviously those difficulties are absolutely insurmountable. Therefore, to my mind no Member who desires to see a Home Rule Bill of any kind at some time can consider this Amendment as other than a wrecking Amendment. No doubt it was inspired in good faith and was not intended as a wrecking Amendment, but its practical effect would be to wreck the Bill, and therefore I have no hesitation as to how I shall vote.
  Not only that, but the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) defied any Member on this side of the House to go down to his constituents, and while telling them of his Home Rule principles in regard to Ireland, to explain why he did not further apply those principles to Ulster. I shall have the opportunity next week, and I shall do so, and shall take for my text extracts from the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite which are perfectly convincing to my mind. If I am told the Amendment is going to wreck the Bill I will not vote for it, and that is a sufficient explanation to my Constituents for voting against it. That is the chief and foremost quotation that it is necessary to give, and that undoubtedly would be one of the points which I shall make. No practical case has been made out for this Amendment—no case which has gone into the details to be considered in any separation of Ulster—and to my mind no cogent argument has been brought forward to justify such separation. One argument was brought forward by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) and it is an argument, which, though it has not been used very often in this Debate, I have often heard used outside this House, and that is that Ulster has as great, if not a greater, claim to separation under a Home Rule Bill as Wales has to have Home Rule of her own. To my mind these cases are not in the least on all fours. No one who has any knowledge of Wales will pretend that the proportion of Nationalists in Wales is anything the same as the proportion of Nationalists in Ulster. If in Wales the proportion of the Nationalists was very nearly half and half, as it is in Ulster, then, indeed, the case
  1148
  would be somewhat parallel, but it is not so. Still, I think from Wales a rather useful instance may be adduced against the principle of separating Ulster from the rest of Ireland in this Bill, because at the extreme end of South Wales, in Pembroke, there is a small community of English settlers, men who for generations past have maintained their traditions and their race, which is not a Welsh race. If you are to give this separation to Ulster from the rest of Ireland, what valid excuse would there be for excluding this half of a county at the end of Wales? And yet if Home Rule is proposed for Wales those inhabitants of Pembrokeshire will not be so misguided and so unwise as to ask to be separated from the rest of Wales.
  But all these arguments seem to be somewhat beside the point. The case was put in a nutshell by the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) when he said that we agreed on both sides of the House that this Amendment made the Bill impossible, and he said we have different answers after we have proceeded thus far together. We on this side of the House say "if that is so Ulster must give way and come in"; you on the other side say, "not at all. If that is so, there must be no Home Rule Bill." That was plainly and distinctly stated, and that is the whole point at issue. We all desire on both ides of the House to see Ulster satisfied as far as it is humanly possible to satisfy her, but we also desire to see Home Rule, and if anyone is, I do not like to say to suffer, because I do not believe Ulster will have to suffer as a result of the Bill, but supposing any one is to have to suffer why should it be the majority? Why should it be the people who have been crying out for Home Rule for so long instead of the minority that is firmly refusing to give way and come into a scheme which is to benefit the whole nation at large? To our mind there is no need for sacrifice because, first of all, of the safeguards, and, secondly, of common sense. We all desire peace. We on this side of the House think there is a better prospect of peace than by simply letting things alone. The hon. Member (Mr. Charles Craig), with his history of how things stood to-day, cannot offer a very favourable account of what the results of letting it alone were. Letting it alone can scarcely be said to have succeeded, and we believe there is a better chance of promoting harmony between these discordant elements in Ireland than by continuing to let things alone. We believe that, after the Bill has passed,

  1149
  in the ordinary course of human events the discordant element will be resolved, and here I think there exists a fundamental fallacy as to the results which will follow Home Rule. It seems to be thought that the course of affairs in Ireland after Home Rule will be very much the same as it is to-day and that the same interests and the same party politics will survive. I myself do not think so. Is it not obvious that the one thing which binds together firmly the whole of the Nationalist party in Ireland to-day is the cause of Home Rule? Is it not obvious that when you remove this binding element you will find a great many matters on which those who are at present in harmony will differ? I do not think it is in the nature of probability or of the Celtic race that it should not be so. When you have got rid of the cause which so sharply separates the Irish people you will find that other interests will develop which will largely divide the Irish people on totally different lines. You will have your urban interests and your agricultural interests, and the whole course of politics will be entirely different from what it is to-day. If I needed any corroboration of that the words of the hon. Member (Mr. C Craig) will supply it, because he said he had no doubt that, if Home Rule were passed, even in Ulster there would be Radicals returned and persons who to-day have no chance of being returned getting into Parliament on a different platform from any that they could stand on to-day. Therefore there is no doubt at all in my mind that with these different interests and with a different course of politics you will find a harmonising of interests which is impossible while the old cause of difference exists.
  I thoroughly agree with the hon. Member (Mr. Harwood), who said that in his opinion, after Home Rule had become a fact, Ulster would rule to a large extent the new nation. I think that is very probably true, although I hope it may not be so much true as he expects. If any Ulster interest does survive, if it is a question of Protestantism, the Protestants will have a commanding position, because in Ireland, which will be to a large extent divided on new lines, any compact body, such as the Protestants could be, will have an overwhelmingly preponderating influence. They would hold the balance. In fact, I should not be surprised if the Protestant influence in the Dublin Parliament became what it is said the influence of the Irish party has become in our Parliament here.
  VISCOUNT HELMSLEY: Yes; toe the line.
  Mr. CRAWSHAY-WILLIAMS: The noble Lord says that the Ulster representatives will be so strong that they will be able to make the rest of the nation toe the line? What better argument could you have than that which has been put into my mouth? For all these reasons I believe that a great number of those on this side of the House do believe that any separation of Ulster would not be either in the interest of Ulster or of the nation, and for myself I shall vote against the Amendment, firstly, because I desire to see a national settlement of this great question, and, secondly, because I desire to see a Home Rule Bill carried and not a wrecking Amendment passed.
  Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: In his interesting and eloquent speech the hon. Member (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) levelled one or two taunts against this side of the House which were not deserved. Various taunts have been levelled against hon. Members on this side of the House with respect to the policy they are undertaking at the present moment. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) levelled a taunt against us because he said an Amendment had been put on the Order Paper very much in the terms of the Amendment now before the Committee, and that it had disappeared. But surely anyone can see that an Amendment moved from the benches opposite is very much more likely to be accepted than an Amendment moved by any of my hon. Friends on this side. I think there is no doubt about that whatever. I do not know the history of the particular Amendment referred to by the hon. and learned Member, but certainly if we do want an Amendment accepted, we shall have a very much better chance of getting it accepted if it is moved from the benches opposite. The hon. Member (Mr. Crawshay-Williams) has taunted us with an attitude of inconsistency. He seems to think there is something inconsistent in our being imbued with a general desire to destroy the Bill, and also with being perfectly prepared, with the risk before one's eyes that the Bill may pass into law, to accept an Amendment which certainly will purge the Bill of one of its most dangerous aspects. I do not think there is anything inconsistent in that. The

  1151
  Amendment will not reconcile hon. Members on this side to Home Rule, but I do not say that that is a reason why we should not support it. I say that probably this Bill will be passed into law in some shape or another. It will be backed up by a mechanical majority who will go into the Lobby like a flock of sheep without even a bleat of protest. If the Bill is to be passed into law, the best thing hon. Members on this side of the House could do would be to make it as little dangerous as possible by accepting any Amendments proposed with that object.
  The attitude of hon. Members opposite with regard to the Ulster question has changed a good deal in the last few weeks and months. First of all they treated the Ulster question as if it were a matter for jest. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] When it was mentioned in the House they used to try to laugh it away. They used to pretend that the subject could not be taken seriously, but I think they have very much altered their opinion. The great demonstrations at Omagh and Belfast, the temper which was aroused by the professed intention of the First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Churchill) to speak in the Ulster Hall, and other things, have shown hon. Members opposite that the Ulster question is not a matter for jocularity. But although the jesting attitude has passed away, its place has now been taken by an attitude which is not any more entitled to respect. The jesting phase has given place to a sort of superior and indulgent tolerance. Hon. Members opposite now seem to think they can appease the Protestants of Ulster by smooth words, and that they can practically coerce her into accepting the Home Rule Bill. Both these attitudes I believe show a Radical misconception of the whole question. I cannot claim to be an Ulster man, or to speak with any authority on this particular question, but I have taken the trouble to visit Ulster, and I have talked independently with a large number of working men, and I fervently believe that the Government, in dealing with this Ulster question, are dealing with a spirit which they do not in the least yet understand. In dealing with North-East Ulster they are dealing with a type like the old Covenanting spirit, and with men as unyielding and as determined as Oliver Cromwell's Ironsides.
  The working men of Ulster are not mere windbags. They are not mere political
  1152
  agitators, or professional politicians. They are sober, hard-working men, who are respected by their fellows. The Members of the Nationalist party are always telling us that Ireland suffered great injustice in days gone by. I do not think that anyone who has read the tale of Ireland during the eighteenth century and part of the nineteenth century would be inclined to deny what they say about it, but personally I cannot see that in order to repair the injustice of the past you have any right to inflict injustice in the present. It was, after all, this country that planted Ulster men in Ulster, and surely it is our duty not to desert them in their hour of need. I think one of the most lamentable spectacles of present-day politics is to see the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture in Ireland (Mr. T. W. Russell) sitting on the Front Bench acquiescing in this Home Rule policy. Of all the defenders of the integrity of the Union no one was more uncompromising, stalwart, or, I would say, more violent than the right hon. Gentleman not so many years ago. Speaking in this House in 1893 in a Debate on the last Home Rule Bill, and referring to the Government of the day, he said:—
  "If they succeeded in what they were doing, they would turn more than a million loyal subjects into men who would hate and despise the name of England, and who would bequeath to their children's children the memory of a great wrong and an infamous betrayal. That was what they were trying to do, and that was what he believed the people of Great Britain, with their big bounding hearts, would prevent them from doing."
  Again he said:—
  "For the province of Ulster, this was a matter of life or death, and whoever discussed the Bill, or whoever opposed it, the Ulster Unionist Members would fight every line and oppose every Clause. The Prime Minister said the previous night that Ireland had suffered from coercion ever since 1832 with the exception of two years. He begged to say that they who came from Ulster looked upon that Bill as a perpetual degradation and coercion of Ulster."
  I should like to know what has occurred to alter these burning convictions of the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture. I have not heard him speak on this subject, and think it would be extremely interesting to hear him defend the Home Rule Bill in this House. I do not suppose that there has even been such a political transformation seen in the history of English politics. The right hon. Gentleman has not only turned his coat, but turned every stitch of clothing he has got on. What has happened since 1893 to change his views or to alter, to use his own words, this perpetual degradation to the Protestants of Ulster? In the

  1153
  Committee stage of the last Home Rule Bill he said:—
  "That province has declared in language perfectly direct and perfectly plain that if such a Legislature was forced upon them they would not pay the taxes which that Legislature imposed, and they had, in language which could not be misunderstood, said that they would resist its authority. They knew and he knew, and many hon. Members on the Ministerial Benches who pretended to be so easy about the matter knew, that if it were sought to force the Bill down the throats of the people of Ulster, they would have to enforce it by British bayonets. He asked the Committee to consider what that really meant. They had scouted the voice of the representative of Ulster, and they must now force this hated Legislature upon them by coercion. What was Great Britain to gain by exchanging one form of coercion for another? That coercion—that is to say, the Gladstone coercion—he held to have been the coercion of crime and the coercion of lawlessness. But what kind of coercion would they have in Ulster? They would not have to coerce crime or lawlessness, but they would have to coerce the majority of a province simply because of their passionate loyalty to the Empire and because of their determination not to be thrust outside its pale."
  That is exactly what Unionists on these benches are saying to-day. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford once said that he stands where Parnell stood. If one might coin a phrase for the present position of the Unionist party, we stand where Russell stood. The position is precisely the same except that the determination of Ulster to resist this Bill is, I believe, more single-minded and more concentrated than it has ever been before. I do not suppose that the Government want to create rioting in Ulster or that they will want to create a revolution in Ireland. No Government, I imagine, would wish to see an uprising of over a million citizens. But if they refuse this Amendment I think it must be without any doubt because of the pressure brought to bear on them by hon. Members below the Gangway. And I am not at all surprised that the Irish party are opposed to the exclusion of Ulster. The Government have been asked several times during the last few months for Returns showing the contribution of Ulster to the Irish Revenue. They have absolutely refused to give them, and each time that questions were asked on the subject they have ridden off on perfectly frivolous quibbles, and have tried to make out that the calculations were impossible to make.
  The same sort of thing happened in Ireland the other day in regard to the Report of the Secret Committee. It was exactly like dragging a tooth from the Government to get them to give the Report. The same thing happened in regard to the evidence given before the Committee, and I imagine that it will require another surgical operation to extract the evidence. Personally, I am not at all surprised that these Returns In regard to Ulster have been refused.
  1154
  Ulster is far and away the richest portion of Ireland, and will serve the Irish party as a very convenient milch-cow in the future. Without Ulster they might find themselves bankrupt, but put Ulster into the Bill and very likely they will be able to stave off financial disaster by taxing Ulster industries and Ulster property—that is to say, by taxing those people who are politically opposed to them. In fact, political revenge and financial expediency will go hand in hand. This being so, surely it would be better to remove this temptation out of the way of the Irish Parliament. This will still leave the Bill an extremely bad one, but it will remove one of the chief danger points and clear the ground for a consideration of the rest of its provisions. I have not very much hope that the Government will accept this Amendment. I was greatly interested to listen to the speech of the hon. Member for Bolton. I am quite sure that if hon. Members opposite will look at this question in the temperate and conciliatory spirit exhibited by the hon. Member for Bolton they would accept this Amendment and show that they really wanted to pass a Bill for Ireland, not only for the benefit of one particular section, but for the benefit of the people of Ireland at large.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I am sure that the House will regret the absence from this Debate, this Debate which so profoundly affects the province of Ulster, of so many of the northern Members. I should have imagined that Belfast, that large and industrial city, that great commercial community, would have had its interests much more efficiently placed in the hands of one of its representatives, if its interests were affected by this proposal, than when placed in the hands of a young and inexperienced Member of Parliament. It is indeed surprising—and I have waited now almost to the end of the two Debates— that we have not had the authoritative voice of Belfast spoken by one of the representatives of that city, and I think it is incumbent on me, as a representative from Belfast, to rise here and protest, as an Ulster man and as a Belfast representative, against the Motion which stands in the name of the hon. Gentleman opposite. Belfast, or a large portion of it, may be opposed to Home Rule, but one thing that Belfast claims is that it is an Irish city, and not a single Member of this House; let him sit either on these benches or the benches opposite, will dare to take his stand on any Ulster platform, or to take part in

  1155
  any popular demonstration before any meeting of Belfast men, irrespective of politics and religion, and declare that they are not Irishmen and that they ought to dissociate themselves from the country in which they were born. I was somewhat amused and interested by the rather fantastic proposal which was made on the other side of the House the day before yesterday. The hon. Gentleman who, I believe is an honest and genuine Home Ruler, suggested as an alternative to the Ulster Protestants in that province or the people of that portion of the nation mentioned in the proposition before the Committee, that they might prefer to go to the Parliament in Edinburgh rather than to the Parliament in Dublin, when Scotch Home Rule is established. The Protestants of Belfast are Irishmen, and they will not be transferred to Scotland, and you will never make a Scotchman out of an Irishman, even though he is an Ulster Protestant.
  He may put out of his mind any hope whatever a proposal of that kind will be, regarded as other than a ludicrous one, and at all events it will receive no support from any section of the Irish people in the city of Belfast. If Ulster, or any portion of Ulster, wants to be cut off from Ireland, why does that proposition not come from an Ulster Member? Why is it left to an English Liberal to bring forward this proposition? It is simply because, whether Home Rule be a good or bad thing for Ireland, Ireland stands by itself, and Ireland will not be broken up into provinces or into sections. You may refuse Home Rule to Ireland, or you may give Home Rule to Ireland, but we want Home Rule given not to a part of Ireland while cutting off another part of Ireland. I cannot understand why any democrat should propose that you ought permanently to establish as a force in a nation a minority. The hon. Member for Aberdeen is a powerful and an insistent claimant for Home Rule for Scotland. Does he want Home Rule for the Scotch Protestants, or does he want Home Rule for all Scotchmen? In Scotland there are six or seven hundred thousand Irish Catholics. Is it his proposal that if these 600,000 or 700,000 Irish Catholics decline to associate themselves with the demand for Scotch Home Rule unless they are cut out of Scotland, they should be handed over to the care of the Dublin Parliament simply because they are different in faith and different in aspiration from the great
  1156
  nation of which they form part? If I were a Scotchman I would resent as intolerable any such claim on the part of Irish Catholics in Scotland.
  Therefore, to tell us in Ireland that because a small proportion of the nation is different in religion—though I venture to say, if you get down to the root of it, it is practically the only difference—that you are to cut them off from their own country, and send them over to be part and parcel of another country which is not theirs. I know of only one reason why the friends or the enemies of Ireland should raise this question of separate treatment for that portion of Ireland which is opposed to Home Rule: It is perfectly true that Ireland is an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country. Is it your contention that because Ireland is an overwhelmingly Catholic country that she is not fit to govern herself? Irish Catholics in England and Irish Catholics in Scotland absolutely accept the principle that they must abide by the laws made by the Protestants in England and the Protestants in Scotland. But it is only in Ireland, because it is a Catholic country, that this contention is put forward. I say that that is an insult to the faith to which I belong, and I regard it as an aspersion upon the creed to which we are proud to owe our allegiance, to say that Catholics are inherently and fundamentally unfitted to govern in a Catholic country because a section of it belongs to the Protestant religion.
  Why do you not rise up in this House, when you are continually assailing the spirit and religion of the Irish people, and tell us of some instance of where Irish Catholics have utilised their power in a narrow or in a broad degree to persecute those of their Protestant fellow countrymen who live in that country, and who are in a minority in a large portion of the country? Ireland is the only country in the world against which the charge of intolerance cannot be successfully made, and therefore I resent it, first of all, upon the ground of national pride, and, secondly, because I think it is an indefensible indictment of one of the most tolerant peoples on the face of the earth. What is more, this charge of intolerance, strange to say, against Ireland, does not come from Protestants in the South or West of that country, or from the midland counties of Ireland. I know myself that in Ireland there are Protestants scattered here and there who are an infinitesimal section of

  1157
  the population in over three-fourths of Ireland. Who are those Protestants? They are the most successful commercial men, members of great professions, and they owe their commercial power and greatness to the toleration of and the kindly feeling of their Catholic customers. Once again I offer the challenge to Members to rise up in this House to justify their attacks upon Catholic Ireland—to rise up in this House and read to us a single declaration from any responsible commercial or professional man in the three provinces of Ireland where they claim they have been unfairly treated, or where there is the slightest possibility of their being unfairly treated by their own countrymen under the better conditions and provisions of this Bill.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer read a quotation from the speech of Mr. Beamish in Cork. Mr. Beamish delivered that speech, and why? He delivered it at an angry Home Rule meeting of landlords, agents, and bailiffs, and all the other army that constitute the ascendancy party in the Southern portions of the country; and this gentleman was compelled, even in the heated atmosphere of a Cork Orange meeting, to rise and declare that he had no sympathy whatever with these charges that had been made against Catholic Ireland, and that he did not believe that now or in the future there was the slightest chance of persecution from his Catholic fellow countrymen. But if they cannot produce in writing or in words spoken a single impeachment of the toleration of the Irish Catholic to isolated Protestants living in those three provinces, I will produce one or two quotations from declarations made by responsible Protestants in the Southern parts of Ireland and I will give to any Unionist Member who desires it, not one or two quotations, but sheaves of printed matter containing declarations from Protestant clergymen, from Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian clergymen, whose lives are cast in those great centres of Catholicity in those three provinces, and everyone of them bears generous and impartial testimony to the kindness and goodwill of the mass of the Catholic people among whom they live. There is in Mitchelstown in the county of Cork the Very Rev. Courtney Moore, and I appeal from the parties in the North to this clerical and impartial observer in the South. In a letter he said:—
  "In this parish some time ago the local board or council elected an English lady nurse, who was an English Churchwoman to the chief position in the local union"
  1158
  and this comprises one of the most Catholic parts of Ireland. The letter proceeds:—
  "The same authorities elected an engineer who was a member of the English Church, a little later on to the position of district surveyor. Another young man, a member of my congregation, was elected Petty Sessions clerk, though there was a Roman Catholic in the field. A few years ago. a young man from the North came here and started business as a grocer. He is a member also of the English Church, and has done exceedingly well. He is a good obliging man of business, and even, the nuns and Christian Brothers patronise him."
  Let me say a word for myself. I prefer the testimony of a Protestant minister in the South to the impassioned oratory which has been accustomed to the atmosphere of Portadown in the North. He goes on:—
  "I am not a Home Ruler yet, but I have, without the slightest solicitation on my part, been unanimously elected a member of the County Committee of Technical Instruction, of which the Roman Catholic Bishop is chairman."
  What do you do for us in the city of Belfast. They were electing a local committee in connection with the National Insurance Act and the Belfast City Council, the dominant party of which is always whining about intolerance in this House and elsewhere, out of fifteen members of that insurance committee, called upon to effectively administer that great Act of social reform, notwithstanding that a fourth of the population of 100,000 people mainly workers were involved; not a single Catholic was elected on that local insurance committee. Let me pass from the clergyman to the business man. Mr. Robert Gibson, one of the leading merchants of the South writes:—
  "I have lived for sixty-seven years in the Catholic districts of Tipperary, Cork, and Limerick. I have never in the least cloaked my real Protestant sentiments. I have been a Freemason for fifty-five years and I have always expressed pleasure and satisfaction at being one. My experience has been that in Ireland the bigotry and intolerance has been always displayed by Protestants rather than by Catholics. Every man who has studied the financial relations question as between Ireland and Great Britain, and the existing system of Government, only does his duty to his country by doing all in his power to keep such a very ill-informed people out of place or power, no matter whether Protestant or Catholic. That is the only form of intolerance that exists amongst southern Irishmen to anything like a marked degree. It is so strong in men's minds at present that if the choice lay between the soundest Roman Catholic Churchman in Ireland who proclaimed himself a Unionist and a Turk who was for righting Irish grievances and giving us Home Rule, I am certain the Turk would obtain (and rightly so) the vast majority of the Catholic votes."
  HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."
  Mr. DEVLIN: Yes, you cheer him, but it meets your argument. Where, then, does the religious argument come in? You say that Protestants will not be permitted the essential opportunities that they need in free

  1159
  institutions. We say religion has never had anything to do with keeping Protestants out of positions. Do you elect Liberals to positions in your constituencies, and do you want us to return Unionists in ours, and ours is not an ordinary political view; it is a deep and well-founded national passion, and Home Rule to us is something more than an ordinary political opinion? Mr. Gibson goes on to say:—
  "It is absolutely certain, if the contest lay between a Protestant Nationalist and a Catholic Tory, the Protestant would obtain at least nine out of every ten Catholic votes."
  10.0 P.M.
  The hon. Member for North Armagh, in the course of his speech, declared how badly Protestants were treated since the County Councils Act had been passed, and asked why cannot we produce the names of any men elected to the county council or district council. That is because the greater bulk of them who live in the South do not care to take part in those matters, because they are busy making money from their Catholic customers, but when the distribution of place or emolument comes about take up the statistics and you will find that in places where the Catholics are 95 per cent. of the population you have 26 and 27 and up to 40 per cent. of the paid positions given to Protestants. Here is the opinion of the chairman of one of the Catholic urban councils in Ireland. The chairman of the Carrick-on-Suir Council and ex-chairman of the Tipperary County Council, and an extensive employer of labour in Clonmel, states:—
  "In this town the percentage of Roman Catholics is about 98 per cent., yet I and others who are not Roman Catholics have been elected to public boards during these years by Roman Catholic citizens. In this district Protestants have been elected to posts, carrying considerable salaries, by public boards almost exclusively Catholic. I can recall seven or eight comparatively recent instances of such elections. To the best of my belief, only three non-Catholics sought election in our county council and they were elected."
  But I am then told, when we meet them on this, their own selected ground, and when we do not leave them a single intelligible reason for the attitude they take up—I am told, "After all you must consider the rich North-East of Ulster and especially the City of Belfast, and are you going to allow," they say, "the wretched and thriftless and unindustrious and unenterprising Celts from the three provinces to dominate the great, rich and progressive province of Ulster and the city of Belfast?" Who has the right to speak for industrial Ulster? None of the Members from Belfast, as I have stated, have risen
  1160
  on these benches. Has Lord Pirrie the right to speak for industrial Ulster? Surely a man who employs 20,000 men, and who pays £25,000 per week in wages, surely his opinion is worth more even than that of an incompetent Lord, even though he has a seat in the House of Commons!
  Captain CRAIG: I would ask the hon. Member whether Lord Pirrie was ever elected to any office, or whether it is not the fact that he never could get the suffrages of the men of Belfast, and the only reason he was made a Peer is because he ratted from the Unionist party?
  Mr. DEVLIN: That is a very pertinent question, and I am glad it has been asked. I will answer it in two ways. The underlying suggestion of the hon. and gallant Gentleman is that though Lord Pirrie employs 20,000 men, and though he gives the best labour conditions in the three Kingdoms, and though he pays £25,000 per week in wages, yet because he has sympathies with the people they would not allow him to be elected.
  Mr. JOHN GORDON (S. Derry)rose and remained standing.
  The CHAIRMAN: I must remind the hon. Member that when the Chairman rises, he must be seated. The hon. Member for Belfast is in possession.
  Mr. DEVLIN: But that is not my answer. The hon. and gallant Member wants to know, would Lord Pirrie be elected to any position in Belfast? He was three times the most brilliant Lord Mayor there ever was in Belfast. During the three years he was in office he built up that city and beautified it; he gave democratic Government; he introduced what some people would almost call a system of progressive socialistic legislation which the old Tories are carrying on to-day. Lady Pirrie was responsible, by her own unaided efforts, for building a great hospital for the city of Belfast at a cost of £100,000, with £50,000 endowment. And how were they rewarded? We hear about intimidation. The moonlighters, the cattle drivers, the men who have been held up here as though they were the only people who exist in the South of Ireland never attacked a lady.
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is going somewhat far from the Amendment. He must confine his remarks to the question affecting the four counties raised by the Amendment.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I am very glad to say that the occurrences to which I refer were in only one county, and I hope that when Home Rule is carried such transactions will be impossible in any county. I ask who claims to speak for industrial Belfast? Is it Lord Pirrie who thus gives his opinion?
  "It is with the utmost confidence I give expression to my opinion that there is no fear that the impending inauguration of an Irish legislature will have as one of its results the religious persecution of Protestants. In existing circumstances, there is nothing to prevent Irish Catholics from exercising, were they so disposed, a certain amount of persecution of Protestants, where the latter are in a minority. But happily the records of Irish Catholics show that so far from there being any persecution of that character, the greatest generosity has been displayed towards Protestants, in that they have been accorded positions of honour and emolument far beyond the ratio to which they were entitled upon any population basis. On the other hand, I confess with shame that in the past a spirit of religions intolerance has been, and is even now, although in a lesser degree, prevalent amongst a portion of the Unionist population of Ulster. Happily the evidence that this unfortunate spirit is on the wane is indisputable and one is not without hope that the present day laudable tendency to draw a proper line between religion and politics, and the softening influence of a more intimate association with their Catholic fellow countrymen, inducing as it must a feeling of tolerance more in accord with the spirit of the age in which we live, may in time reduce to insignificance the possibility of religious friction and tend to unite in one harmonious body the Protestant inhabitants of Ulster with the rest of their fellow countrymen in a common desire to promote the credit and welfare of their own country."
  I am told that it is only Lord Pirrie, the head of the greatest shipbuilding industry in the three kingdoms; and that his opinion does not count. The only men who stand for the commercial and industrial community are the lawyer representatives of certain portions of the province of Ulster. There are two great industries in Ulster—linen and shipbuilding. I pass from the shipbuilder to the linen merchant. Mr. Glendinning is one of the largest linen merchants in Belfast, and he has such profound confidence in the future of Ulster and of Ireland under a Home Rule Government that he is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on the extension of his works in Belfast. Here is what he says:—
  "The oft-repeated assertion of leaders of the Unionist party that under Home Rule Protestants will be deprived of their civil and religious rights, liberties and privileges, and will be subjected to all manner of pains and penalties on account of their faith, is controverted by those who reside in Roman Catholic districts, and who are therefore competent to express an opinion. Clergy of all sections of the Protestant Church, Protestant traders. Protestant farmers, artisans and labourers, who have spent their lives in the very heart and centre of Catholic communities, bear willing testimony to the moderation, forbearance and considerate-ness of their Catholic neighbours, and in those districts where Protestants are fewest in number, the relations are of the most cordial character."
  We have it therefore on the authority, not of itinerant politicians, professional or
  1162
  otherwise, but of the head of the greatest shipbuilding industry in Ireland and of one of the leaders of the great linen industry, that they are not afraid of Home Rule, of Catholic persecution, or of religious intolerance; but that in their judgment concession to Ireland of self-governing institutions will remove all that rancour and bitterness that has so long corroded every branch of life in Ireland. But anybody to hear Unionist Members speak would imagine that the prosperity of Belfast was entirely due to the religion of the1 majority of its people. That is a rather extraordinary assumption to make. Perhaps the best way of answering it would be to quote from the most authoritative of Tory exponents. Here is what Lord Salisbury had to say in regard to that contention:—
  "What is the reason that a people with so bountiful a soil and such enormous resources as the Irish, lag so far behind the English in the race? Some say it is to be found in the character of the Celtic race. I look to France and see a Celtic race there going forward in the path of prosperity with most rapid strides. Some say it is to be found in the Roman Catholic religion. I look at Belgium and I see there a people second to none in Europe, except the English, for industry, singularly prosperous, considering the small space of country they occupy, having improved to the utmost the natural resources of the country, but distinguished from all the people of Europe by the earnestness and intensity of their Roman Catholic belief. Some say it is because of listening to demagogues."
  I have as much dislike for demagogues as he had.
  "I look to the North, and I see there a people who listen to demagogues and undoubtedly find material prosperity."
  It cannot be the demagogues. It cannot be Romanism. It cannot be the Celtic race. What is it then? Lord Salisbury gives the answer. He says:—
  "I am afraid the one thing that has been peculiar to Ireland has been the system of government that has been forced upon her."
  Belfast has succeeded because she has had a monopoly of the linen trade, which was encouraged and subsidised by successive British and Irish Governments, whilst the manufacturers in other parts of the country were discouraged or suppressed. I have heard the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for the City of London, and the ex-Leader of the Opposition, rise in this House and recite for nearly twenty minutes a series of great and growing industries stifled and destroyed by the jealousy of this country towards Ireland. Belfast's prosperity has been due to shipping and ropemaking, and the manufacture of linens and cottons; to her proximity to the great industrial centres and coalfields of England. Above all,

  1163
  the one thing that has made Belfast great is the one thing that struck at the prosperity of the other parts of Ireland, and that was landlordism—the capacity of the Belfast people to secure cheap land for building purposes and long leases. It was also due to the Ulster custom that gives the Ulster farmers security of tenure, which the Southern farmers never had. It was due to the evictions from Ulster, from the fact that so many farmers were driven from the land and obliged to seek refuge in Belfast, thereby giving the manufacturers an unlimited supply of cheap labour. Finally, it was due to the fact that every post of honour or emolument was given to the city by successive English Governments, and it was due to the development of the Channel and cross-Channel and ocean-going shipping by which Belfast has secured a monopoly, and is able to levy a toll in some shape or form upon the greater portion of the commodities going in or out of the country. Belfast, in fact, has become the clearing-house not only for Ulster, but for the Western, Southern, and Midland counties of Ireland. When we hear from those benches above the Gangway that Belfast pays such a large proportion of the taxes, it is explainable by the fact that the Customs Duties paid by Belfast are by far the largest in comparison with other ports of Ireland. Belfast is dependent for its commercial stability upon the savings of Irish Catholics in the other three parts of Ireland who have been greatly instrumental In supplying the Belfast merchants with the capital by which they carry on their industry.
  But Belfast is not all Ireland. Belfast is only one city in Ireland, and the evil hand of mis-government has fallen as deeply on Protestant counties like Fermanagh, Down, and Antrim, as on any portion of the land in Connaught, Leinster, or Munster. There are nine counties in Ulster. Within the last fifty years while the population of Belfast no doubt has increased, the population of these nine counties has diminshed by over a million of people. Can it be pretended that Ulster is prosperous when we find that the diminution of population in that province is greater than the diminution of any of the other provinces in Ireland, and the great diminution does not take place from thriftless and unenterprising Donegal, or Cavan; or Monaghan, but from the great county of Antrim, of which Belfast is the. capital city. If you look
  1164
  into statistics you will find that emigration is the greatest from those very counties which are incorporated in the Amendment. I do not think that those agriculturists will be grateful to any hon. Member who takes action tending to drive them from the homes of their fathers, and to prevent them from enjoying the advantages of a free Parliament which will apply its fostering care and knowledge to the promotion of their interests! The Ulster Members are not Irish loyalists; they are only English Tories. One could have appreciated to some extent the opposition of hon. Members if they had used the Union, and the power and authority they had for the last twenty-five years, on behalf of their own people. I have heard them tell how they have gone among the people, how they have talked to the people; how they have learned the people's woes and sorrows. When did they begin to take an interest in the people? When the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson) the Member for Dublin University was visiting the lanes and alleys and squalid slums in Belfast, did he tell the people that he was one of the first into the Lobby and one of the last out of it against old age pensions? Did he tell them that he leads his organised forces into the Lobbies on every occasion against every measure of social reform which not only affect the great industrial toilers in our large manufacturing cities in England and Scotland, but equally and deeply and profoundly affect the toilers in Belfast? Is there a single Member from Ulster who has ever recorded a vote for any Liberal measure that has been introduced into this House? Or can one of them boast of ever having brought the slightest ray of sunshine into the darkened homes of the toilers of Ireland?
  Captain O'NEILL: On a point of Order. May I ask your ruling, Mr. Whitley, as to what all this has to do with the Amendment before the Chair?
  The CHAIRMAN: I have had a good deal of difficulty in the course of to-day in reminding various hon. Members of the scope of the Amendment before the Committee. I hope the hon. Member will confine himself strictly to it.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I think it will be perfectly obvious to the Committee what my point is. I do not want the industrialists and toilers in the city of Belfast to be left to the mercies of hon. Members above the Gangway as their

  1165
  representatives in this House. I want the Committee to understand, and I want the people of Ulster to understand, and especially I want the working classes in Belfast to understand, that if by any possible chance these four counties, including the city of Belfast, were taken out of this scheme of Home Rule for Ireland then, instead of having Irish Nationalists continuing as their representatives to come and fight their battles against their Unionist representatives in this House, they would be left to the tender merices of those men to play the game of the employers and the privileged classes against them. The Unionist Members from Ulster say if Home Rule is passed they will not recognise an Irish Government; they can only speak for themselves. On the day that an Irish General Election is announced in Ireland there will be Liberal and Labour candidates to stand for whatever vacancies may be offered in an Irish Parliament, and they will be returned to Parliament, and Belfast will have sixteen representatives in an Irish Parliament, and Ulster Protestants will have sixty. Does anyone, especially anyone who boasts of the strength and indestructible character of Protestantism, believe that sixty Protestants in a Parliament of 160 Members cannot be a mighty and even a dominant force in the adjustment of every great question? One would imagine to hear them talk that when the Home Rule Bill becomes law one side of the Irish Parliament will consist of my hon. Friends and the other side of a small remnant of Members from Ulster. The thing is unthinkable. There are many of my hon. Friends on these benches who upon economic questions are more in touch with the hon. Members on the Opposition side of this House than they are with me. When we get an Irish Parliament security for a minority will be found neither in your promises nor in your written safeguards, but in the readjustment of parties, in the union of the Protestant workers of the North with the Catholic labourer of the South, in the union of the privileged classes of the North with the farmers and the tillers of the soil in the South. There will be a complete transformation of parties and classes, and you will have the same natural divisions then as you have unnatural divisions now. You are not fomenting religious strife by this Bill, but obliterating it. For one hundred years the Act of Union has gone on year after year and generation after generation, and yet we are told here to-nights that Ireland
  1166
  is seething with religious bigotry and hatred. Is that what you claim for the Union? [An HON. MEMBER: "Who said that?"] You all said it. I heard an hon. Gentleman here to-night, one of the mildest-mannered men in this House, deliver a most sanguinary speech, in which he told us that Catholics and Protestants were constantly at each other's throats. That has been your whole story on English platforms. The people have been denied the privilege of fighting their economic battles for themselves.
  Mr. GOULDING: What about the "Molly Maguires"?
  Mr. DEVLIN: I never saw an English "Molly Maguire" before, but I think I see one now, and I sympathise with the hon. Member, because Tariff Reform is not popular now, and he is getting angry. A taunt of that character does not come well from the hon. Gentleman. What I say is that the moment Home Rule passes you will have one of the most beneficent schemes that was ever conceived by a British statesman to end all those evils of which Unionist Members complain, and which they use as part and parcel of their Unionist propaganda. I am the only Belfast Member who has spoken. I have waited for two days to hear one of the other representatives of Belfast state to this House whether he was prepared to subscribe to the ignoble doctrine that you are now going to desert, according to your own story, the neglected and outcast Protestants in three provinces, in order that you may retain your own privileges in three counties in Ulster. No Member for Belfast has put forward that proposal or attempted to defend it. There will perhaps be riot or some disturbance. I am not so pessimistic as to believe that a great change of this character will take place without those manifestations of feeling which are natural to a great community like the city of Belfast. But I am equally certain that just as when the Disestablishment of the Church Bill became law people forgot the threats they made, and saw no danger come to the Church, but, on the contrary, their own Protestant bishops and clergymen have boasted that the Church in Ireland has grown and flourished since it was was disestablished—[HON. MEMBERS: "Never."] I have read the speeches of the Primate of all Ireland and some of the bishops, and they have boasted repeatedly—[HON. MEMBERS; "NO."] Anybody can say "No."
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is really being led into diverging paths. [HON. MEMBERS: "Led!"] The hon. Member is diverging. I hope I shall not have to appeal to him again.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I accept your ruling. I understood all these things were germane to the consideration of whether four counties in that country to which I belong are to be torn from the general nation. I have stated all I have to say. The only voice from Belfast has been a voice in favour of a united Ireland. I want to make my position clear. No Home Rule Bill will ever be acceptable to those whom I represent in Belfast unless it be Home Rule for a nation and not Home Rule for a province.
  Mr. F. E. SMITH: The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has addressed the House in a speech of much vivacity, which I think the most cordial supporters of Home Rule will hardly think affords a very sanguine promise of that spirit of conciliation, in the prospect of which, and in the prospect of which alone, we are asked to see the solution of the many enormous difficulties of detail which have confronted speakers from whichever side they have addressed the House. It is always preferable in these matters to deal with principals, and, therefore, I think we may be consoled for the absence of the Prime Minister by the interposition in the Debate of one who has been described by his own leader, the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond), as the real Chief Secretary of Ireland. Enjoying the not unusual advantage of following immediately after, not one of those who pretend to direct the course of the Government in Home Rule, but one of those who really does direct that course, one may speak, I hope, more directly and more usefully than one can under normal conditions, and, when the hon. Gentleman invites the House, as he invited us a moment ago, to look for security in our minority or in the written safeguards, I tell him, speaking I believe on behalf of those who sit behind me, we do not attach the slightest value to any single safeguard contained in this Bill from the first safeguard to the last. The hon. Gentleman devoted the earlier part of his speech to a disquisition upon the extreme improbability that the Protestants of Ireland would ever have reasonable cause to complain of the intolerance of the Catholics of Ireland. The hon. Gentleman is, I understand, the president and
  1168
  founder of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. We should have welcomed his explanation—if he had given it to us—why this vindicator of the rights of Protestants in Ireland has carefully excluded from membership of the league, which takes so great a part in the industrial life of Ireland, every single Protestant from every branch of the association.
  Mr. DEVLIN: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says I am the founder. The league was founded 300 years ago.
  Mr. SMITH: I can only extend an apology to the House for my ignorance of the history of this important association, and accept the statement of the hon. Gentleman that he is not the founder. But he does not dispute my statement that he is the president of the league and he does not, I understand, dispute my statement that no Protestant is eligible for membership. If that restriction and that exclusion has existed for 300 years, what comfort can we derive from a repentance of three months. For a description of this Hibernian society which has existed for 300years—[An HON. MEMBER: "What has this to do with the four counties?"] I am prepared to take it from one who can speak with intimate knowledge, and that is the Member for Cork (Mr. William O'Brien), who has done far more for Ireland and has made many more sacrifices for many years of his life than many of those who have thought it decent to interrupt. This is what he says of the society, of which the hon. Gentleman—the new conciliator—is president:—
  "The fundamental object of this society is to give preference to its own members first and to Catholics afterwards, as against Protestants. On all occasions, whether it is a question of custom, of office, of public contracts, or the composition of public boards, the 'Molly Maguires,' members of the Hibernian League, are obliged always to support the Catholic as against the Hibernian. If Protestants are to be robbed of their business, if they are to be deprived of public contracts, if they are to be shut out of every office, honour and emolument, what is this but extermination? The domination of such a society makes this country a hell. It would light the flame of war in our midst, and blight every hope of its future prospects."
  An hon. Gentleman interrupts and says that this is a true description of Orange lodges. If that is your position, see where we stand. It is a description of the Hibernian Society, given by one who speaks with long knowledge of it.
  Mr. DEVLIN: I desire to say there is not a single word of truth in the statement.
  Mr. SMITH: I fully expected that. I did not quote the hon. Member as an authority as to the objects and effects of his

  1169
  political bantling. I quoted somebody else who knew it and was somewhat less prejudiced in its favour than the hon. Gentleman. Are these the prospects with which we approach that conciliation of which we are told? If that description can be given by one who has known the activity and operations of that society for all its political life, and if, as an hon. Member opposite says, it is a description that can equally truly be given of the Orange lodges, where is your conciliation? That is the happy political family that has centuries of freedom, of understanding, and of sympathy in front of them. That is the assembly that is to realise the so-often repeated peroration of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond) in this House. It is worth while to see the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. T. W. Russell) here, because I should really like to elicit from him, who has changed his views on so many questions, whether he has changed them also in his classic answer to the speech made to-night by the real Chief Secretary for Ireland. This is what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Tyrone said in the course of the last Home Rule controversy, and I commend this to the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken:—
  "The whole thing means that, if you set up a Parliament on College Green, the wealth, education, property and prosperity of Ulster will be handed over to a Parliament which will be elected by peasants dominated by priests, and they again will be dominated by the Roman Catholic Church. And who is going to do this? The people whose noblest records have been their struggles to free themselves from that very influence. Will you show me a square yard in Europe, a single year in the history of the world, wherein, when that Church had political power, it was not used to crush all free thought and freedom of opinion? Have you ever read that one of the tenets of that Church is that all free thought is a crime? That is what they propose to do with the Irish Protestants. That is what we will never submit to without a struggle."
  I do not understand that the right hon. Gentleman, in the somewhat extraordinary political somersault he has performed, has recanted everything he has said. Give me leave to tell him that I heard him speak twenty years ago on a platform on which I followed him with profound admiration, that I have never forgotten the lesson he taught that meeting, and we shall never forget it. The hon. Gentleman who preceded me informed an hon. Member from Scotland, who spoke in this Debate, that Irish Members and Irishmen have no intention of going to a Scotch Parliament. For myself, I would say, if I were asked, that I think the proposal that Irish Members should go to a Scotch Parliament as both fantastic and entirely impracticable.
  1170
  But could there be a circumstance more eloquent of the disquietude with which Scotch people and Scotch Members contemplate these proposals? [An HON MEMBER: "There is no disquietude."] The hon. Gentleman does not represent Scotland. We have had the advantage of listening, in the course of this Debate, to Scotch Members more articulate than the hon. Gentleman. I merely point out that no circumstances, in my humble judgment, could be more eloquent of the disquietude with which Scotch Members and the Scotch people contemplate these proposals than that Scotch Members should actually be found in this House responsible for the proposal, and, in order to escape from this very Parliament, which, according to the hon. Member for Waterford, is going to usher in a new era of prosperity for Ireland, a Scotch Liberal supporter of the Government should be driven to the proposal that Irish Members from Ulster should go to a Scotch Parliament.
  Mr. EUGENE WASON: Speaking as Chairman of the Scottish Liberal unofficial members, I do not think the hon. Member who spoke was really speaking seriously. As far as Scottish Liberal Members are concerned they are at one with the Government.
  Mr. PIRIErose—
  The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire had already put his views-before the House or I would have allowed him to make his explanation. I beg hon. Members not to interrupt on either side of the House. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. F. E. Smith) has been put to difficulties in the matter of time.
  Mr. SMITH: As I understand the right hon. Gentleman's intervention I think it hardly forwarded the view which he desired to recommend to the House. He states that the Scotch Member who indicated the views to which I was directing attention was not serious in the expression of those views. I cannot help thinking that the hon. Member will owe his reputation as a humorist entirely to that statement.
  Dr. CHAPPLE: As I do not wish to be accused of being lacking in that property which is sometimes denied to the race to which I belong, perhaps I might be permitted to say that I was perfectly serious when I suggested that should the worst fears of Ulster be realised she should have

  1171
  a way of escape. I do not believe those fears will be realised, but if they should be' realised after Home Rule is granted to Ireland there should be a way of escape by which Ulster could withdraw and send representatives to Scotland.
  Mr. SMITH: The hon. Gentleman is in the position of the hen which found herself in the most embarrassing situation of having hatched two ducklings. Surely no sane man ever proposed legislation on the lines indicated by the hon. Member. He says: "I believe on the whole that the fears of Ulster will not be realised, but after all there is always the Scottish Parliament." I pause to notice the sanguine-ness of the hon. Gentleman in supposing the existence of a Scottish Parliament. I may be permitted to point out to the hon. Member that he has failed to notice another alternative by excluding the Parliament already existing in the Isle of Man. But is it not perfectly obvious that the arguments advanced by the Scottish Members correspond to the very real and far less grotesque apprehensions of their own constituents? I ask is there a single Scottish Member who would himself consent, and who could with authority vouch on behalf of his constituents that they would consent to be bound by the decisions of this Irish party that is to be set up in the Scottish Parliament? The hon. Gentleman who preceded me asked a question which admits of an extremely simple answer. He asked, Are the Scottish Catholics to be handed over to the Irish Parliament in the days when federalism is an accomplished fact? Is it proposed that the Scottish Catholics shall withdraw then and be made subject to the Irish Parliament? I reply that there is not such a record of tyranny and oppression in Scotland as there is in Ireland.
  Mr. DEVLIN: Where is it in Ireland?
  Mr. SMITH: The hon. Gentleman has asked me a perfectly simple question. I tell him that the records are to be found in many documents with which I am very familiar. One of them consists of the charges made by the Judges to the grand juries. If he wishes to pursue the inquiry more closely, I would refer him to the criminal calendars; and if he wishes a record of a more ecclesiastical character I would refer him to the charges made to their flocks by his own bishops. The hon. Gentleman who preceded me referred to opinions which it is not possible for me to
  1172
  verify—the opinions of individual Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists. I thought his method of argument was more completely discredited than almost any modern weapon in our Parliamentary arsenal. We are not very much concerned to know the views of individual Members or to appraise individual eccentricities. What we are concerned to know—and it admits neither of doubt nor controversy—is that Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists alike, with a degree of unanimity never equalled in any country, have pronounced by majorities against the grant of Home Rule. As a supreme indication of tolerance the hon. Member was able to cite one case which was indeed deserving of the respectful consideration of the Committee. He pointed out that the Very Rev. Canon Moore had been appointed on the Committee of Technical Instruction. What a reassurance of all our fears! We may point to cattle that are hamstrung, or to the activities of moonlighters, or the circumstances that there are on the local governing boards 700 Nationalists and fifteen Unionists, and we are to console ourselves with the fact that the Very Rev. Canon Moore is on the Committee of Technical Instruction. The hon. Member who preceded me made some observations as to Lord Pirrie—I think it was in a reference, not very polite, to my Noble Friend the Member for Oxford University.
  Mr. DEVLIN: It was not.
  Mr. SMITH: To some Noble Lord. Let us not fotget that Lord Pirrie is also a Noble Lord, and that by a coincidence his conversion coincided with the public gratification of his own democratic tendency, and when hon. Gentlemen proceed to say that those who are devoted to Nationalist beliefs in Ireland never attacked a lady, I reply to him, yes, but they have shot many women. If it is to be put upon the ground of politeness, I tell the hon. Gentleman that we draw lessons at once more vital and more permanent from the graves of Mrs. O'Mara and others who were done to death without one word of protest from those benches. He talks of the people's woes and the people's sorrows. He did not tell anything of the woes and the sorrows of the families of those who were murdered in pursuance of a campaign which never received one word of discouragement from the Members on these benches—
  Sir WILLIAM BYLESrose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question foe now put," but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
  And it being Eleven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again on Tuesday next, 18th inst.

TERRITORIAL FORCE.

  10TH (COUNTY OF LONDON) BATTALION.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Gulland.]
  Mr. ARTHUR STRAUSS: I am sorry to detain the House on a question I wish to raise affecting the Territorial Force—I refer to the disbandment of the Paddington Rifles, thus casting a slur upon the men belonging to that battalion, and offering an insult deeply felt by all the local Territorial Committee, and by those large employers of labour who for years' past, and especially the last two years, have taken infinite trouble to secure the success of the Territorial Force. Time after time the local association have brought under notice the little attention given to the headquarters. No notice was taken of those complaints; although the local association offered to pay half the cost of the repairs. In spite of that disadvantage, the battalion has increased in three years from 380 to 560, and in the last five months no fewer than eighty-five recruits were registered—more than any other London battalion in the same period. There is reason to believe that in a very short time the battalion would have reached its full strength. The reasons given by the War Office for its action is that there were not sufficient men out of the 560. We had 390 last year. Although it is true that in the second week the number was reduced to 280, the War Office never took the trouble to inquire into the reason. In addition the War Office did not inquire whether there was an increase or decrease last year. A publication was sent in October last by the War Office to the County Office suggesting disbandment of the battalion. In consequence the association thoroughly investigated the matter and reported to the War Office that there was not sufficient ground for the suggestion. They re-
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  commended certain improvements to meet headquarters and took a most rosy view of the prospects of the battalion and protested in the strongest way against disbandment. The brigadier congratulated the local associations on the success which they had achieved and gave as the reason for disbandment military reasons.
  Whatever those may be, my complaint is that this decision was arrived at without consulting either the local association or the County of London Association, and indeed worse than that the advice given by the County Association only a few months ago was ignored and flouted. In my opinion that is thoroughly stupid. It is suicidal and certainly most unfair. You rely on the local associations for raising recruits and to use the best material in their districts for the Territorial Force, and how do you treat them. The County Association admittedly did their very best and you treated them with ridicule and insult. You ignored all that they did, and the men you have disbanded are lost to you, because they deeply resent the slur which has been cast upon them. You create a precedent which is certainly most discouraging to all the County Associations. You stifle the voluntary system, and you are doing your best to wreck the Territorial Force. Your reply to the Territorial Association was that it was too late. It is not too late to make the best use of the patriotism of Paddington, and they have shown by having the largest muster in London in the National Reserve that it is a splendid recruiting ground, and a patriotism which, I am sure, would produce the best battalion you could wish for if you had only given it the same opportunities which you give to other battalions, and if instead of disbanding it you had given those materials which they asked for, and which ought to be granted.
  Mr. H. P. HARRIS: I hope the hon. Member who represents the War Office will give an assurance that no decisive action will be taken with regard to the Paddington Rifles until the Secretary of State has received the deputation which was to have been received on Monday last, but has been postponed for obvious reasons. I quite agree that the War Office must be the judge whether or not it is necessary in the public interest to disband a regiment, but I do not think they are entitled to do it without informing themselves fully of the facts of the case, especially the recent progress of the regiment. They are not entitled to deal with

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  a voluntary body in total disregard of the local committee, which has done a great deal of good work with excellent results. The locality feels that the regiment has not had fair play and that the War Office have shown an almost brutal disregard of local opinion. The main reason given by the Secretary of State why the battalion was to be disbanded was that though every effort had been made there was no prospect of the regiment making up its numbers. How does that square with the facts. For the year ending 31st December, 118 recruits joined the regiment. That is a larger number than can be shown with most London battalions. I find from the report of the local committee that 141 recruits joined the battalion in the year ending 31st March last. How can anyone say there is no prospect of its making up its numbers? The County Territorial Association took the trouble to hold a local inquiry, and made a unanimous report against disbanding the regiment. Their opinion was disregarded. The local committee, which is a very influential committee, consisting of some of the most important employers of labour in the borough, with the Mayor of Paddington as chairman, say:—
  "The committee have come to the conclusion that the Paddington Borough area is one that can easily recruit a battalion of Territorials, and they are fortified in this view by the great success of the local battalion of the National Reserve, the Boy Scouts, etc., which are in a flourishing condition. The chief difficulties in the way of recruiting are the total inadequacy and unsuitability of the present headquarters, and the want of a proper rifle range."
  These difficulties can be removed if the War Office will only do what is necessary. I wish to urge that the War Office should really give impartial consideration to this matter. If they decide, after full consideration, that it is necessary to disband the regiment, we must accept the decision. But the regiment at present feel that they are not getting fair play, and it is my duty to voice their feeling.
  Colonel GREIG: I am a member of the Territorial Association referred to, and I was present at the meeting when the resolution quoted by the hon. Member opposite was passed. I think it is a little unwise on the part of the hon. Member to pitch his case quite so high. In associating myself with the appeal made to the Secretary of State by the last speaker to reconsider the question if possible, I do not associate myself with what I am afraid has been an attempt to make this matter
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  an attack upon the War Office for what they have done. I want to be perfectly fair. I have heard both sides of the question. The disbandment was originally suggested by the general in command. As I understand it, it was done for military reasons, the authorities having come to the conclusion that it was unwise to spend further public money on the battalion. That may be a just decision. It was endorsed by the next commanding officer who came into office immediately after the general to whom I have referred, was reconsidered by him, and endorsed. I am well aware of what was the effect of that decision. Local feeling is very high. People feel that they have not had quite the consideration that they ought to have had from the War Office authorities. However, a useful, and, I believe, a very hopeful step has just been taken in the issue of a new Provisional Order relating to the constitution of the Territorial Force in the County of London. The main point in that scheme is that it will enable the mayors of the different boroughs in London to become members of the association. I believe that will assist us in evoking that local interest in the local corps which will be really valuable in recruiting in the London Division, and will bring it up to the standard which it ought to occupy. For that reason I would like to associate myself with this step. I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite will get rid of the party idea in this matter of home defence. What we want now that we have got a good system which has started well is to evoke more local patriotism and interest in our Territorial force.
  I would appeal to the War Office, if they possibly can—I know the Order has gone out for disbandment, and I am afraid a certain number of men have been or are on the point of being discharged. If I am not mistaken, the discharges will not take effect until they have in the usual course fulfilled all their pecuniary liabilities to the association, and surrendered their arms and accoutrements. But if the matter has not gone too far, I do hope that some measure of delay may be allowed to this battalion in order to see whether it may be recruited up to strength. It is true that it has only reached 500 in four years. Still, this is a new departure in the history of the force, and I think it would be a very graceful concession to the County of London Territorial Association, and the local feeling of Paddington, if some opportunity—I do not put it higher

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  than that—were given to the local battalion to get their force raised to a proper standard of numbers and efficiency.
  Captain JESSEL: First, I would like to strongly reinforce the appeal to the War Office, which has been made on both sides, to give a little more consideration to this matter. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that a great deal of feeling has been aroused in London by the disbandment of this battalion. Every effort is being made to link up the local units with the Territorial Association and with the Territorial Battalion, and we fear, those of us who are jealous of the efficiency of the Territorial organisation in London, that what is happening to-day in Paddington may happen in St. Pancras to-morrow or Westminster the next day. The question is raised on military grounds. If it was a question of replacing an Infantry battalion by a brigade of Artillery or a regiment of Yeomanry it would be a different matter. If the commanding officer or the adjutant were not doing their duty they could be replaced and others put in their place, but that would be no reason why a whole battalion should be swept away. The first charge was that it was not being recruited at proper strength. My hon. Friend has shown the very great progress that has been made in recruiting in the last twelve months, and I cannot for the life of me see why this battalion should be singled out for destruction. I join with the appeal made from the tenches opposite not to treat this matter as a party question. It is not a party question. I hope the War Office will not, for the sake of saving its face, refrain from inquiring again into this matter. There is considerable apprehension about this in London. Paddington has a population of over 100,000 people. Surely they can support one battalion if proper facilities be given them, and if they are given a proper drill hall and rifle range! It is not too much to ask the War Office to provide these ordinary requirements. It is proposed to associate this battalion with Hackney. Here, again, there is danger of infringing upon local feeling. I hope the hon. Gentlemen on the Government Bench will get the War Office to reconsider this matter.
  MARQUESS of TULLIBARDINE: I speak on this matter from the point of view of an outsider. I agree that this is a question touching the efficiency of the Territorial Force. I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite why this corps is to be dis-
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  banded. Was it because it was short in numbers, or because it was inefficient. If it is inefficient, it is obviously inefficient for one of two reasons. Either it had not the means of becoming efficient, and the War Office ought to have given the means, or its officers are inefficient. Why, then, does not the War Office deal with the question of the officers? As far as the men are concerned, it is a mere matter of training, or if it is short in numbers it can increase them in a short time. Surely it is not the case that it is not possible in the whole of Paddington to get sufficient numbers? That is not the reason for its being disbanded. They have 500 men, and if there is a shortage of numbers that is only a reason for extending the area.
  The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): When the hon. Member for North Paddington (Mr. A. Strauss) informed me that he was about to bring this subject before the notice of the House on the Motion for Adjournment, I was anxious he should defer it until my right hon. Friend, who is Secretary of State for War designate, should be in his place, and be able to answer him. Technically speaking, there is no Secretary for War at the present moment, and I think it would be much to the advantage of the House if the answer could be given by my right hon. Friend later on. It must obviously be of advantage to the House that the Minister responsible should give the answer to this question. The hon. Gentleman, however, has thought fit to raise it now. I can only inform him that I have been in communication with my right hon. Friend, and he informs me he is willing and anxious to receive a deputation upon this subject at the earliest possible moment. I sincerely hope that that will meet with the view of both the hon. Member for Paddington and the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, who have made such temperate and moderate speeches this evening, showing that this question is not one-sided. I think that is pretty obvious from what fell from the mind of my hon. Friend, that this is not a party question, and I repudiate the language used by the hon. Member for North Paddington to the effect that the War Office cast an insult on the patriotism of Paddington. If any citizen of Paddington feels that, I should like to say on behalf of the Secretary of State for War, that we desire to remove that feeling at the earliest possible moment. I think the hon. Member for

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  South Paddington said he felt that fair play had not been received by the inhabitants of Paddington. If that is the real and genuine feeling which they have, we shall do our best to remove that feeling. It is our anxiety and desire to do all we can to remove any feeling of that kind, and the Secretary of State will take the earliest possible steps to remove it, Finally, I think this case comes a little late, and if he says he is afraid the door has been closed it is impossible for me to say the door has not been closed, because I believe it has. The order has gone forth. It has been stated in answer to a question, but I would like to say that I have not seen a door which has been closed which is not capable of being opened.
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: Do we understand that the whole question of the disbanding of this corps will be reconsidered on its merits? I quite understand the explanation that no door is really ever closed, especially if the foot that keeps it open is sufficiently strong. He must have seen the strong feeling which has been aroused in the whole country, not only in patriotic Paddington, by the action that has been taken. Not only Paddington but also in the case of the Crewe volunteers, the country has felt very deeply that the Territorial Force has not received that consideration from the War Office which we expect. Do we understand that the question will be reopened?
  Mr. A. STRAUSS: I move that the House do not now adjourn."
  Colonel YATE: Will the hon. Gentleman state under what authority the War Office disbanded this battalion?
  Mr. TENNANT: I do not know what the hon. Member means by "authority."
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: Do we understand that the question will be reopened? That is what I asked the hon. Member.
  Mr. TENNANT: I have stated the position, and I really do not think I have anything to add. I do not think the right hon. and gallant Gentleman ought to press me beyond that.
  Mr. HUNT: What is the deputation for if the matter is not going to be opened up again?
  Colonel LOCKWOOD: I only asked a plain question.
  Mr. TENNANT: It is quite obvious the deputation will be in order that my right hon. Friend may have the means of considering the whole circumstances, and if that will not answer hon. Gentlemen I do not know what will.
  Mr. COOPER: Can the hon. Gentleman not tell the House why these men have been disbanded?
  Mr. TENNANT: If the hon. Gentleman has not followed what has occurred in Parliament, it is not my fault. The reason has been given in answer to many questions, and the hon. Gentleman has only to consult the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. A. STRAUSS: On a point of Order. May I move the House do not now adjourn?
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member may move it, but it would be no use, because by Standing Order the House must adjourn.
  And, it being Half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.